I just want all of you to know that I had to go to Glenn Beck’s personal mental hospital The Blaze to follow up on an article. Also, I am now bleeding from the eyes. So, thanks for that.“Did Justice Antonin Scalia go too far this time?” – David G. Savage (Los Angeles Times)
“Retroactively Right” – Ed Burmila (Gin and Tacos)
A number of years ago, my grandfather announced to my collective family that he had reached the “Fuck it all” stage of his life, and was going to spend his remaining years doing whatever the hell he wanted. He finally retired, sold his business, and has spent the last several years alternating between playing tennis and bridge and travelling the world. He was 75 at the time. I note this because Justice Antonin Scalia is 76.
Once upon a time, someone could maybe have made the case that Antonin Scalia was a towering legal intellect whose full-throated defense of constitutional originalism was admirable, even if you wanted to beat him to death with a baseball bat every time he did it. As Ed notes, Scalia has gone increasingly off the rails since Lawrence v. Texas, culminating with his obviously political lambasting of the President’s immigration policy earlier this week.
Right now, President Obama is expected to win in November. That’s another four years of Democratic presidential rule. Scalia is 76, Kennedy is 75, Ginsburg is 79, and Breyer is 73. Ginsburg is widely expected to retire, and Breyer may not be far behind. Neither would do much to alter the court’s liberal/conservative composition under an Obama Administration. However, the replacement of Kennedy or Scalia with a liberal, or even a moderate, would dramatically swing the court in one direction or another.
Really, Romney vs. Obama isn’t so much a battle for the White House, but rather a proxy fight over the Supreme Court. Mitt Romney could appoint four Scalia’s in their fifties that could serve for thirty years, like George W. Bush did with Alito and Roberts. These four could undo fifty years of progressive accomplishments by fiat in pretty short order. It would be open season on Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, the Voting Rights Act, etc. Alternatively, Obama could appoint four Kagan’s and Sotomayor’s that could pave the way for thirty years of a more progressive judiciary.
Elections have consequences.
“How much of Obamacare can Republicans repeal?” – Sahil Kapur (TPM)
“Buying Insurance vs. Paying a Fine: What’s the Tradeoff?” – Kevin Drum (MotherJones)
“Rest of the country should take a good look at the situation in Texas” – Roni Caryn Rabin (Kaiser Health News)
Here’s the truth: the PPACA is individually popular, and collectively unpopular. When polled as individual policy, it does very, very well. When polled as “Obamacare”, people hate it. So, if the GOP wants to start taking away people’s insurance and jacking up rates, they’re more than welcome to do so. Ultimately, much of what the PPACA set out to accomplish has already been codified by the insurance companies, so even if it goes down in flames tomorrow, some of the major changes will remain.
As Kevin Drum points out in his article, the individual mandate is a backstop. It’s designed to force everyone into the insurance market; the stick to the carrot of insurance subsidies and elimination of exclusionary policies through regulation. The heart and soul of the PPACA is the subsidies and regulations, which is unlikely to go down even if the individual mandate does.
Finally, for a look at what our national healthcare system would look like under GOP rule, we turn to Texas (which will be the subject of much ridicule later).
Basically, it’s a libertarian hellscape where those with the best healthcare get the best care, and everyone else is given a stern talking to about healthy choices and left to die.
“The 5 Craziest Policies in Texas Republicans’ 2012 Platform” – Travis Waldron (ThinkProgress)
“The NRA’s Nightmare claims over Eric Holder don’t hold up” – Ryan J. Reilly (TPM)
“Republican Congressional candidate promises to impeach Obama over new immigration policy” – Scott Keyes (ThinkProgress)
And now for a new segment I like to call Spot The Looney! (With Apologies To Monty Python)
Let’s start in Texas, where the GOP is outlawing taxes, returning to the gold standard, privatizing Social Security, opposes multiculturalism and critical thinking, implementing corporal punishment in schools, declaring the separation of church and state to be a myth, teaching creationism, banning abortions entirely; repealing the Voting Rights Act, minimum wage laws, and the Endangered Species Act; abolishing the EPA, declaring LGBT individuals a threat to families, cutting funding to education, increasing the authority of the State Board of Education (which has been previously noted for their loonyness), and finally, opposing reparations for anything.
The NRA is suffering from their own success. They won: the right to bear arms is pretty firmly ensconced in the American psyche. So, failing that, what’s left? Pushing insane conspiracy theories that Obama and Holder are out to take everyone’s guns.
And finally, we turn our attention to Minnesota, where Republican Congressional candidate Allen Quist wants to impeach Obama over the mini-DREAM and DOMA issues, and plans to take the issue to the American people. I fully expect the American people to react the same way I do when the crazy street preacher outsize the bars on a Friday night starts reading from the Bible over a megaphone: laugh to myself and keep walking.
