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It was always a trap
Friday, June 29, 2012 | Posted by Liberal Librarian at 12:07 PM
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 24 hours—and if you’re reading this essay, chances are you haven’t been—President Obama—and, more importantly, the American people—were handed a huge victory yesterday when the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. Deaniac will have an analysis of the decision in depth. I want to address the political impact of the decision going into November.
In my previous essay, I delved into my fascination with Roman history to draw a parallel with what I see as part of Obama’s strategy. The way that the ACA case has played out confirms what I see as his strategy.
If you remember, Republicans were braying that the President was going to run a “billion dollar campaign” for re-election that would destroy democracy in the US forever. As usual, the Right was projecting its own sins onto its opponents. The fact is that the Obama campaign was never going to get near $1 billion in funding. Democrats, were aghast at the Citizens United ruling, and major donors like Warren Buffet will not donate to Democratic Super PACs as a matter of principle. We can argue the merits of such positions—I think as long as Citizens United is the law of the land it’s more than short-sighted to unilaterally hamstring ourselves—but the fact remains that with that decision the floodgates opened for GOP donors. Those who donate to the GOP Super PACs see themselves as the most harmed by Democratic policies, and giving a small percentage of their wealth to defeat the socialist interloper in the White House and his compatriots all across the country is seen as a small but wise investment. The Republican campaign was always going to have more money than the Democrats once finance laws were struck down. Darkly warning that the Democrats were going to have hundreds of millions of dollars to impose their will upon an unwilling populace was the usual Republican strategy of deflecting their own intentions onto their enemies.
Pres. Obama knew he was going to face opponents who were better funded than he would be; for the first time in modern US history, the incumbent would be at a financial disadvantage in an election.
But Obama has been here before. Hilary Clinton was the presumptive nominee in 2008—before he beat her by amassing an intricate knowledge of the delegate selection rules which allowed him to amass delegates while the Clinton campaign focused on winning big states. He was supposed to lose to war hero John McCain; America wasn’t ready for a black President. But then McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice president, and Obama kept campaigning, drumming up enthusiasm, instilling in people the hope that things could change if the son of an African father and a white Kansas mother could be elected in a country with a dark racial history.
Just like Hannibal facing a larger Roman army, Obama has faced opponents with more resources, and beaten them by a combination of keen strategy and deft tactics. His opponents always expect his attacks to come from the normal direction, the way it has always been done, and he upends them by attacking out of left field. As an aikido master, he allows his opponents’ own momentum to throw them, so that he can conserve his own precious resources.
However, being at a disadvantage means you have to take risks. And that’s what he did with bringing ACA before the Supreme Court this year.
He could have waited until after the election. There was no legal reason to bypass lower court action and send the case directly to SCOTUS. But, the health care law was the President’s greatest domestic achievement. He was always planning to run on it, despite what the Right was saying. But it would be more difficult to run on it when the law’s status was still unsettled. It needed to be decided, one way or the other. And the best way to run on it was to bringing it before the Court, have it upheld, and then tout its provisions for the entire campaign. Upholding it would also fire up his supporters. Victory breeds victory, but victory only comes to the bold. It was a bold tactic to push forward the ruling on the law—a decision that many on the Left condemned after the “disastrous” oral arguments.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/06/it-was-always-trap.html
June 28, 2012
The politics of it all
This, from Politico’s emailed “Breaking News,” is just pathetic:
The House will vote on a full repeal of Barack Obama’s health care law during the week of July 9, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Thursday morning. The scheduling of another repeal vote came less than an hour after the Supreme Court upheld the health care mandate
Atta boy.
The other politics of this decision are going to be fascinating to track–more from the Democratic than Republican side. Congressional GOPers will naturally exploit at every opportunity the sinister, galloping fascism of President Obama’s validated constitutional concern for millions of the uninsured. And Obama is expected to issue a strong reaffirmation of both his concern and his legislative cures. But what of Democrats, congressional district by congressional district and state by state?
Some are already heading for the hills–and not those of North Carolina. This is precisely the wrong strategy. They should be taking names, kicking ass, and letting God sort out the casualties. They should, in short, be wholly endorsing Obama and ‘ObamaCare’; they should be selling the latter as they should have sold it years ago.
There are months to go before Election Day. And the electorate stands persuadable, just as they were persuaded–within only a couple of weeks–to Obama’s side during the debt-limit debacle. Right now, the electorate very much likes the ACA’s constituent parts but dislikes the legislation itself, which is like supporting free speech and religious liberty and trials by jury but opposing the Bill of Rights.
The Dems can do this. They can turn this thing around, and in the process put Eric Cantor’s strategy to the torch. But first they must seek the unity of Eric Cantor’s party.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/06/the-politics-of-it-all.html
June 28, 2012
Mitt Romney–>Hot Shower
What else can one say about Mitt Romney’s “rebuttal” than that it was shockingly unsurprising. This man is an indefatigable, shameless, amoral liar–and we expected every syllable of this morning’s compounded lies.
It’s actually sickening; just listening to Romney’s lies is a sickening act. What’s more, while listening I always feel like another shower is in moral order. To subject oneself to a Jim Jones presidential candidate–from one of the two major parties, no less–is a nearly indescribable act of degrading participation in pure, wretched filth.
Good God, is Romney really the best the GOP could do? After eight years of George W.?–who, as I recall, cost me 2,920 additional showers?
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/06/mitt-romney-hot-shower.html
June 28, 2012
ANOTHER shower
Eric Cantor just said that after Republicans repeal ObamaCare (which won’t happen), then Republicans will finally have a chance to do healthcare right (naturally, no specifics).
That would be the same chance the Republican majority in both houses had in 1995, in 1997, in 1999, in 2001, in 2003, and in 2005.
Apparently, seven’s the charm.
What frauds these people are. Even Nixon wouldn’t buy a used car from these slippery and trickiest of dicks.
Although Charlie Cook, of the Cook Report, writes that “If you’re waiting for a retreat of tea party politics in the House Republican Conference and a resurgence of Blue Dog Democrats in the next Congress, you are likely going to be disappointed,” I nonetheless find it ethically inconceivable that the American electorate would return a majority of these swindling buffoons and swinish racketeers to the United States House.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/06/another-shower.html
June 29, 2012
From the right, high-dive sophistry
You probably won’t be surprised to learn from Charles Krauthammer, who paused from his London Olympics training in high-dive sophistry to explain it, that yesterday Chief Justice John Roberts nobly used all his conservative powers largely to rescue the Court’s reputation from years of … liberal jurisprudential arrogance and degeneracy.
Roberts, writes Krauthammer, is “acutely aware that the judiciary’s arrogation of power has eroded the esteem in which it was once held.” Krauthammer then categorically asserts: “Most of this arrogation occurred under the liberal Warren and Burger courts,” which yielded “four decades of popular protest and resistance.”
Perhaps, Jon Kyl-like, Krauthammer did not intend his observation to be a factual statement. Even a cursory search of public opinion of the Supreme Court produces contemporary items such as this, from the Christian Science Monitor: “Twenty-five years ago, two-thirds of Americans approved of the way the Supreme Court was doing its job. Today, according to a recent New York Times-CBS News poll, that number is just 44 percent.”
Thus 14 years after Roe v. Wade, which Kruathammer marks as the watershed in public disdain of the highest court, the Supremes enjoyed broad public approval. Yet Roberts, according to Krauthammer, was saving the Court–oh, incidentally, there was that Bush v. Gore thing, “Whatever one thinks of the substance of” it; no mention of Citizens United–from four decades of preponderant liberal arrogation and arrogance.
My London money is on Charlie, you know, in the high-dive sophistry competition.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/06/from-the-right-high-dive-sophistry.html
With friends like Rubio…
By Steve Benen
Fri Jun 29, 2012 12:35 PM EDT.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a far-right rising star who’ll be vetted for the Republicans’ vice presidential nomination, has a history of saying things that aren’t especially helpful to Mitt Romney.
In March, for example, a day after endorsing the former Massachusetts governor, the Florida senator said, “There are a lot of other people out there that some of us wish had run for president, but they didn’t.” Ouch.
Now it’s falling on Rubio to defend Romney’s health care reform law, which happens to be nearly identical to President Obama’s health care reform law. Specifically, Rubio was tasked with explaining why Obama’s tax penalty for failing to have insurance is outrageous, but Romney’s identical tax policy for failing to have insurance is perfectly acceptable.
The defense isn’t coming together especially well (thanks to Dan Sachar for the tip).
The immediate response to the Democrats’ tax rebuttal from Republicans was less than impressive.
Romney “supported it on the state level. Which means if you didn’t like it in Massachusetts, you could move to another state,” Rubio said on Bloomberg Television. “What are people supposed to do? Leave the United States now because of Barack Obama’s brilliant idea to stick the IRS on millions of people? More importantly, the state of Massachusetts doesn’t have the IRS.”
First, Massachusetts has a Department of Revenue, which is the state version of the IRS. Second, I realize public policy isn’t Marco Rubio’s strong point, but “millions of people” won’t have to pay the tax penalty under the Affordable Care Act.
But I’m especially impressed with the idea that Romney’s former constituents “could move to another state” if they were outraged by Romney’s health care policy. Or as Jon Chait put it, “Right! At least it’s possible to flee the socialist hell that Mitt Romney constructed in Massachusetts for another state, but there’s no way you can leave the country! Even if you make it past the armed guards, you’ll be killed by the electrical fence! No, wait — I’m thinking of East Germany.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/29/12482438-with-friends-like-rubio?lite
11 Things You Get Now That Obamacare Survived
The righteous folks @ Mother Jones put together a list of the cool things we have right now because Obamacare survived.
I’m passing it on to you.
Read it.
Then your job is to pass that information to someone else who doesn’ realize how important and cool this whole thing is.
Ready?
1) Insurance companies can no longer impose lifetime coverage limits on your insurance. Never again will you face the risk of getting really sick and then, a few months in, having your insurer tell you, “Sorry, you’ve ‘run out’ of coverage.” Almost everyone I’ve met knows someone who had insurance but got really, really sick (or had a kid get really sick) and ran into a lifetime cap.
2) If you don’t know someone who has run into a lifetime cap, you probably know someone who has run into an annual cap. The use of these will be sharply limited. (They’ll be eliminated entirely in 2014.)
3) Insurers can no longer tell kids with preexisting conditions that they’ll insure them “except for” the preexisting condition. That’s called preexisting condition exclusion, and it’s out the window.
4) A special, temporary program will help adults with preexisting conditions get coverage. It expires in 2014, when the health insurance exchanges—basically big “pools” of businesses and individuals—come on-line. That’s when all insurers will have to cover everyone, preexisting condition or not.
5) Insurance companies can’t drop you when you get sick, either—this plan means the end of “rescissions.”
6) You can stay on your parents’ insurance until you’re 26.
7) Seniors get $250 towards closing the “doughnut hole” in their prescription drug coverage. Currently, prescription drug coverage ends once you’ve spent $2,700 on drugs and it doesn’t kick in again until you’ve spent nearly $6,200. James Ridgeway wrote about the problems with the doughnut hole for Mother Jones in the September/October 2008 issue. Eventually, the health care reform bill will close the donut hole entirely. The AARP has more on immediate health care benefits for seniors. Next year (i.e., in nine months), 50 percent of the doughnut hole will be covered.
8) Medicare’s preventive benefits now come with a free visit with your primary care doctor every year to plan out your prevention services. And there are no more co-pays for preventative services in Medicare.
9) This is a big one: Small businesses get big tax credits—up to 50 percent of premium costs—for offering health insurance to their workers.
10) Insurers with unusually high administrative costs have to offer rebates to their customers, and every insurance company has to reveal how much it spends on overhead.
11) Free birth control and other preventative services for women, unless you work for a faith-based organization that opposes birth control.
http://princecampbell.typepad.com/my-blog/2012/06/11-things-you-get-now-that-obamacare-survived.html
Meep Meep Watch
A reader writes:
Am I wrong in recollecting that President Obama, months ago, pushed and/or encouraged a decision by the Supreme Court on the Affordable Care Act? I seem to remember thinking at the time that it was a crazy thing to do prior to the 2012 election. But maybe not so much?
Another adds:
He’s weak. He yields too much. He gets rolled. He’s a lightweight. He’s inexperienced.
He wins.
Always.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/06/meep-mee.html
On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart said that “President Obama strolled down I Killed Bin Laden Lane and addressed the nation.”
I know Stewart can get on the nerves, but more than one person noted that the President addressed us from the same room he told us about Bin Laden.
BWA HA HA HA HA Loving it. Bin Laden Lane. PBO is not playin’ with these MOFOs.
Posted at 07:56 AM ET, 06/29/2012
The Morning Plum: Time to move on?
By Greg Sargent
Given how badly Republicans want to destroy Obamacare, and given how visibly they were anticipating that the Supreme Court would carry out that task yesterday, it’s surprising to see so many claiming the ruling amounts to a big victory for their side. Multiple GOP strategists tell Dan Balz that Obamacare’s survival will make it far easier to mobilize the base and turn the electorate against Obama by arguing that he has foisted a massive tax increase on the country, making the push for full repeal central to the campaign.
I don’t believe the ruling will have much of an impact on the election either way. But it’s hard not to notice the contrast between the two parties’ postures as the smoke clears. Multiple Democrats are arguing that it’s time to move on from the divisive battles over health care and turn to the economy. Meanwhile, Republicans are angrily insisting that they are not willing to accept the verdict of the court and that we must refight this battle yet again.
Mitt Romney’s campaign has debuted a new hashtag — #FullRepeal — and is boasting about how much money it has raised off that goal. But most polling suggests the American people are conflicted about whether they want full repeal; a sizable chunk want the law altered but not done away with completely. And note what two Republicans told Balz:
Ed Goeas, a GOP pollster, said before the ruling that it was important, in pressing for repeal, for Republicans to be cognizant of the fact that many of the law’s provisions are popular. “People strongly dislike Obamacare, but they’ve kind of forgotten why they don’t like it,” he said. “But they do remember what they do like.”…
Ken Khachigian, a California-based Republican strategist, said the issue will have “zero influence” on the outcome of the election. “Romney would make a huge mistake if he allowed himself to be diverted from the core economic issues,” he said.
No question, the overall law remains unpopular. Dems have to seize this moment to refocus the argument on the provisions that are actually in it, many of which are broadly popular, and on the fact that Republicans would replace them with Nothing. Dems shouldn’t get complacent about yesterday’s victory. And no doubt there may be some political price to pay now that SCOTUS has labeled the mandate a “tax.”
But are independents and moderates really going to respond well to the renewed GOP push for full repeal? We’ve already fought the battle over Obamacare twice — first in Congress, and now in the Courts. One of the primary arguments for full repeal — that it represented Big Government overreach that trampled the Constitution — has been discredited by the highest court in the country. The law has now been enshrined as constitutional. It wouldn’t be surprising if polls in coming weeks show less support for full repeal, as opposed to more.
Elections are about choices, and Republicans want to make this one about whether we keep the law or get rid of it entirely. Fine. But will independents and moderates really want to see this battle fought a third time? My bet is that even those middle-of-the-road voters who are skeptical of Obamacare will want to see officials campaign on ways to fix the law, rather than keep trying to blow it up. My bet is they’ll conclude it’s time to move on.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Governor Deval Patrick is on Rundown with Chuckie T. Laying out the 411 on MA insurance plan.
ACA Makes Democrats Strong
by BooMan
Fri Jun 29th, 2012 at 12:28:20 AM EST
Watching the Republicans react to John Roberts’ ruling on ObamaCare is a lot like going to an exotic zoo and seeing animals you’ve never seen before. Their behavior is unfamiliar and fascinating. I guess we’re used to the collective freak-out aspect of it, but they seem so stunned and disoriented. It’s also kind of revealing in the sense that many conservative politicians are showing that they really believe their own horseshit.
On the one hand, you have savvy politicians like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who came out and said he wasn’t surprised because the mandate was clearly a tax. He knows the GOP has been engaged in pure political posturing. But then you have guys like Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, who tweeted that he felt like he had lost two friends today: John Roberts and America.
Let’s be honest. Most of these pols are smart enough to know that making people pay a small fine if they aren’t insured isn’t going to change the fundamental character of this country. It’s not a slippery slope that will soon find the government taxing people for having children or getting married, as Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina suggested today. What these folks are afraid of is something different.
They are afraid that people will like these reforms when they are fully implemented and demand that the government continue to regulate and improve the system. Let’s start with the CBO estimate that the bill will eventually result in 30 million people getting health insurance who would not otherwise have it. Think about that number for a minute. And then ask yourself, “who could possibly think that is a bad thing?”
The answer is obvious. If you don’t like the Democratic Party, you are not going to like the idea of 30 million voters out there who only have health insurance because of the Democratic Party. Republicans don’t like this bill because they know it makes the Democratic Party stronger.
If there is a slippery slope, it isn’t that the government will use today’s ruling to start infringing on people’s rights in other areas. The slippery slope is created when a family of four, making four times the poverty rate ($88,200 annually) gets a $1,480 subsidy to help them afford their health insurance and sees their maximum out-of-pocket annual premium capped at $8,379 (or 9.5% of annual income).
The Affordable Care Act benefits too many people. Once people see those benefits they will be grateful for them and think the government is doing something nice and valuable for them. Anyone who tries to lower their subsidy or raise their cap is going to get punished. And the party that tried to destroy all of this at the Supreme Court? They’re the new enemy.
At the most basic, the Affordable Care Act will put a lot of money in a lot of struggling folks hands. And that is not good for the Republican Party that desperately needs struggling people to see the government as an unhelpful antagonist.
The new national health care plan was implemented several years ago by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. It now covers over 98% of the citizens of the Bay State. No one thinks the bill is tyrannical, because it isn’t. It does matter whether something is done on the state of federal level, but health care isn’t an issue where the jurisdictional origin makes any difference in people’s lives. The sting of being coerced into buying private health insurance you don’t want isn’t any lesser or greater if it comes from the governor’s office or the Oval Office. Republicans that have convinced themselves otherwise are delusional.
Republicans should be happy that America came up with a solution for health care that preserved a robust private health insurance industry. In that sense, the right won. But so many of them seem genuinely to believe that this health care reform spells doom for our country. Some of them are actually confused. The rest realize that the Democrats just won a great victory by winning many new adherents who will make it tougher for them to win elections and enact the kind of policies in other arenas that they would like to enact.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/6/29/02820/3138
From Charles Pierce about the SC Ruling:
…. you should really read Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinion in the health-care case, if, for no other reason, than to watch as, I think at least partly for the pure mischief-making hell of it, she roasts Antonin Scalia on a spit over that stupid argument about broccoli that, because he’s more bored with his day-job than the average toll-taker on the Mass Pike, Scalia dragged into the Court’s oral arguments from some drive-time doughbrain on AM radio:
That is so of the market for cars, and of the market for broccoli as well. Although an individual might buy a car or a crown of broccoli one day, there is no certainty she will ever do so. And if she eventually wants a car or has a craving for broccoli, she will be obliged to pay at the counter before receiving the vehicle or nourishment. She will get no free ride or food, at the expense of another consumer forced to pay an inflated price. Upholding the minimum coverage provision on the ground that all are participants or will be participants in the health-care market would therefore carry no implication that Congress may justify under the Commerce Clause a mandate to buy other products and services.
I hope she giggled while she read that.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/ginsburg-opinion-healthcare-10127002
LOL Love Charles Pierce & Jusstice Ginsburg too!
GOP governors have some decisions to make
By Steve Benen
Fri Jun 29, 2012 8:38 AM EDT.
One of the more popular aspects of the Affordable Care Act has to do with “exchanges.” The idea is, states are required to establish networks of health care plans, from which uninsured families and small businesses will choose regulated plans at affordable prices. It’s up to state legislatures to work out the details of these exchanges, crafting them to meet their individual state’s needs.
A Reuters-Ipsos poll released this week found broad, bipartisan support for the idea — 80% of Republicans expressed their support for exchanges.
But the poll questioned Republican voters, not Republican policymakers. As we’ve seen this year, several GOP governors are refusing to work on exchanges, because to do so would be to cooperate with a health care law they’ve been told to hate. Governors like Chris Christie (R) of New Jersey have refused to even consider exchanges, hoping that the Supreme Court would strike down the law before he had to create health care options for his constituents.
Well, guess what.
The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act shifts the focus from whether sweeping changes to the health insurance market should take place to a scramble to meet the law’s rapidly approaching deadlines.
A number of largely Republican-led states that gambled on delay now face the unsettling prospect that the federal government could take over their responsibilities, particularly in setting up the health insurance marketplaces known as exchanges, where people will be able to choose among policies for their coverage.
In six months, states are required by law to demonstrate that the exchanges will be up and running within a year, which puts GOP governors who’ve dragged their heels in a tough spot.
What happens if they ignore the legal deadlines? That’s when things get even more interesting.
——————————————————————————–
States that balk at creating exchanges invite the federal government to create, and possibly manage, exchanges for these states. The great irony of Republican intransigence at the state level is that they’re encouraging expanded federal control over health care in their states.
For now, far-right governors say they don’t care. Florida’s Rick Scott, Texas’ Rick Perry, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal and others believe honoring the law and its deadlines would mean accepting the reality of the Affordable Care Act, and they simply don’t want to do that yet.
Just as Christie and others were willing to gamble that the Supreme Court would kill the law and make this a moot point, other GOP governors are now willing to gamble once more — if Mitt Romney wins the presidency, and Romney’s platform is based on taking away health care benefits from the middle class and working families, the Romney administration can probably be counted on to endorse their decision to reject exchanges.
But if they’re wrong, and Romney comes up short, these governors may be disappointed when the Obama administration is forced to create exchanges in these states, whether the anti-health care governors like it or not
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/29/12478849-gop-governors-have-some-decisions-to-make?lite
Found this in the comments at BJ:
AnonPhenom Says:
The media have already started using “what Republicans call Obamacare” where they use to say “Obamacare”, they will slide nicely into generic phrases like: ‘health care reform bill’ as will the Republicans as the ACA becomes more popular, Dems and Progressives should continue to use the phrase Obamacare as it changes from a term of derision into a growing set of reforms the population value and respect.
Even Colorado’s wildfires can be politicized
By Steve Benen
Fri Jun 29, 2012 8:00 AM EDT.
Following up on Rebekah’s item earlier, deadly wildfires continue to spread in Colorado, and thousands are being forced from their homes. I’d hoped we could at least take some solace in the notion that the ongoing tragedy wouldn’t become the latest political football. After all, while some natural disasters have more political salience — the pathetic response to Hurricane Katrina, for example — this didn’t appear to be one of them.
So much for that idea. TPM’s Nick Martin reports that some conservatives have “looked for ways to blame it on President Obama.”
Some of the same people who have bashed the president as a big government, big spending liberal now say a wildfire that destroyed hundreds of homes in the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs can be blamed on the president because he has been too slow to spend money to beef up the federal fleet of air tankers.
The meme began more than a week ago when pundit Michelle Malkin, who lives in Colorado Springs, wrote a piece for the National Review Online titled “Obama Bureaucrats Are Fueling Wildfires.”
“The Obama administration’s neglect of the federal government’s aerial-tanker fleet raises acrid questions about its core public-safety priorities,” she wrote.
Obama signed a bill to spend $24 million on new fire-fighting air tankers, but they’re not yet available to help in Colorado. And so, many on the right are pouncing, condemning the Obama administration for not spending enough money. When the subject came up during a press conference with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), the governor seemed feigned bemusement: “Were these the same conservatives that were so worried about the Obama administration spending too much money, or were these different conservatives?”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/29/12478170-even-colorados-wildfires-can-be-politicized?lite
I did a thread on Colorado. Can you post this over there too? If anything is political about those fires, it’s Romney and his cohorts who rail about big gubment and no need for those public sector jobs. AKA-FIREFIGHTERS!
‘Now, Teddy can rest’
By Steve Benen
Thu Jun 28, 2012 4:05 PM EDT
In fairness, the above photo looks like it might have been taken today — it does capture the two leaders’ reactions to the Supreme Court nicely, doesn’t it? — but it was taken yesterday. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) just happened to get caught at an unfortunate moment at a Capitol Hill event.
Still, the smile on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) is even broader today than it was yesterday.
Pelosi was attending Democratic Whip Meeting in the Capitol Visitor Center when she found out about the decision, according to a narrative obtained from her office. She returned to her office to make phone calls, and left messages for the president and vice president.
Pelosi then called Vicki Kennedy, and was described as telling Mrs. Kennedy: “Now, Teddy can rest.”
It’s become a media cliche to talk about “winners and losers” after any important political development, so I’ll continue to avoid writing (and reading) such items. I will, however, note that as satisfied as health-reform advocates are today, it’s worth singling out Nancy Pelosi, who fought harder and worked longer to get the nation to this point.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/28/12463773-now-teddy-can-rest?lite
Rachel Maddow does a nice piece on the good people at SCOTUSblog, and how the guy behind it is an ‘Old School’ journalist:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48006988
Yes, Lyle. I posted 2 links in the SCOTUS thread of his commentary. He’s good & fair.
Rachel Maddow has a segment on how the SC ruling gives the Democrats the chance to resell the ACA.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48006664
Governors need to get on board, or the passengers in their states will need to fire the drivers of the bus.
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Everyone! :-)