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Aug 14 2011
On This Day In History August 14
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
August 14 is the 226th day of the year (227th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 139 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law.
On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Social Security Act. Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR, flanked by ranking members of Congress, signed into law the historic act, which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and retirees. FDR commended Congress for what he considered to be a “patriotic” act.
U.S. Social Security is a social insurance program that is funded through dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). Tax deposits are formally entrusted to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, or the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund.
The main part of the program is sometimes abbreviated OASDI (Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) or RSDI (Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance). When initially signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 as part of his New Deal, the term Social Security covered unemployment insurance as well. The term, in everyday speech, is used to refer only to the benefits for retirement, disability, survivorship, and death, which are the four main benefits provided by traditional private-sector pension plans. In 2004 the U.S. Social Security system paid out almost $500 billion in benefits.
By dollars paid, the U.S. Social Security program is the largest government program in the world and the single greatest expenditure in the federal budget, with 20.8% for social security, compared to 20.5% for discretionary defense and 20.1% for Medicare/Medicaid. Social Security is currently the largest social insurance program in the U.S., constituting 37% of government expenditure and 7% of the gross domestic product and is currently estimated to keep roughly 40% of all Americans age 65 or older out of poverty. The Social Security Administration is headquartered in Woodlawn, Maryland, just to the west of Baltimore.
Social Security privatization became a major political issue for more than three decades during the presidencies of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
Aug 14 2011
More Economic Gloom On The Horizon
With states and cities struggling to balance their budgets with lay offs of workers, cuts to benefits and wages, as well as, reduction of aid to schools, hospitals, clinics, and other agencies, states government desperate for revenue are looking to on-line gambling but may run up against the obstacle of the Justice Department:
It’s an idea gaining currency around the country: virtual gambling as part of the antidote to local budget woes. The District of Columbia is the first to legalize it, while Iowa is studying it, and bills are pending in places like California and Massachusetts.
But the states may run into trouble with the Justice Department, which has been cracking down on all forms of Internet gambling. And their efforts have given rise to critics who say legalized online gambling will promote addictive wagering and lead to personal debt troubles.
The states say they will put safeguards in place to deal with the potential social ills. And they say they need the money from online play, which will supplement the taxes they already receive from gambling at horse tracks, poker houses and brick-and-mortar casinos.
“States had looked at this haphazardly and not very energetically until the Great Recession hit, but now they’re desperate for money,” said I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School, where he specializes in gambling issues.
When it comes to taxing gambling, he said, “the thing they have left is the Internet.”
Meanwhile the Obama administration is mulling over whether to take a tougher approach to economic issues:
Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Plouffe, and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress, even if they may not have much economic impact. These include free trade agreements and improved patent protections for inventors.
But others, including Gene Sperling, Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser, say public anger over the debt ceiling debate has weakened Republicans and created an opening for bigger ideas like tax incentives for businesses that hire more workers, according to Congressional Democrats who share that view. Democrats are also pushing the White House to help homeowners facing foreclosure.
Even if the ideas cannot pass Congress, they say, the president would gain a campaign issue by pushing for them.
“The president’s team puts a premium on being above the partisan fray, which is usually the right strategy,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate. “But on this issue, when he knows what the right thing to do is, and when a rather small group on one side is blocking any progress, you have to be willing to call that group out if you want to get anything done.”
While Obama drags his feet staying with his bipartisan tick that has made matters worse, the housing market continues to sink under the weight of 4.6 million homes with delinquent mortgages and real estate owned sitting empty and the jobs market stagnates with the U3 at 9.1% mostly because 193,000 people dropped out of the labor force and weak jobs growth. There were only 117,000 jobs created in July not nearly enough to even keep up with population growth.
Calculated Risk has two great graphs that illustrate the two problems:
Click in images to enlarge
It well past time for Obama and the Democrats to stop whining about the obstructive Congress. So whatsoever the White House puts forth won’t get passed, at least make it a fight you can take to the street to say you at least tried to do something. Pragmatic won’t get it done, it hasn’t for the last three years.
Aug 14 2011
Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
The Sunday Talking Heads:
This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Live from Ames, Iowa, Jake Tapper interviews the GOP presidential contenders, Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
The round table will also be from Ames with ABC’s George Will and Matthew Dowd, ABC News Political Director Amy Walter, author and radio host Laura Ingraham, and Radio Iowa News Director Kay Henderson.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Norah O’Donnell sits in for Schieffer live form Ames, Iowa. Her guests will include GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. Plus the Democratic response from DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).
The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Nia-Malika Henderson, The Washington Post National Political Reporter, Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post Senior Political Editor, David Ignatius, The Washington Post Columnist and Jamie Tarabay, National Journal Managing Editor who will discuss Obama’s crisis of leadership and can Rick Perry beat Mitt Romney?
Meet the Press with David Gregory: Gregory will interview Rep. Michelle Bachmann. The round table with Iowa’s Governor Terry Branstad (R), GOP strategist Mike Murphy, the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, senior political reporter for Politico, Jonathan Martin, and NBC News Political Director, Chuck Todd, will mostly babble about Iowa, Perry & Obama.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley:
More Iowa, don’t bother.
Fareed Zakaris: GPS: No information available at the time this was published.
The essential vote on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel that ruled that the individual-coverage mandate in President Obama’s healthcare reform is unconstitutional did not come from a reactionary Republican appointed by Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.
Rather, it came from respected jurist whose two appointments to the federal bench-first as a judge for the Northern District of Georgia in 1994 and then to the 11th Circuit in 1997-were made by then-President Bill Clinton. No, Judge Frank Mays Hull is not a raging lefty, but nor is she a right-wing judicial activist. A former law clerk for Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle, who as the chief justice of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1960 to 1967 led the court in issuing a series of epic decisions on behalf of civil rights, Judge Hull has a reputation as a moderate defender of the rule of law who has earned reasonable marks for her pragmatic and decidely mainstream interpretations of the Constitution.
Connie Schultz: Are You Angry Enough to End a War?
Keep cool, Daniel Webster once said. Anger is not an argument.
Wise advice, but it sets an impossible standard if we reflect on the loss of 30 Americans in a single incident in Afghanistan. Perhaps only prolonged and widespread anger will bring an end to this relentless loss of American lives.
Last Saturday, in the single deadliest loss for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, 30 American men were killed after a rocket-propelled grenade took down their Chinook helicopter. Twenty-two of the dead were Navy SEALs, many of them from SEAL Team Six, which carried out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, although the Pentagon said none of the dead participated in that raid. Seven Afghan soldiers and an Afghan interpreter also were killed.
Sounding like John Wayne on a 1950s movie set, Marine Gen. James Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, offered his take on the tragedy:
“We grieve for our lost comrades and especially for their families, yet we also remember that the lads were doing what they wanted to be doing and they knew what they were about,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “This loss will only make the rest of us more determined — something that may be difficult for those who aren’t in the military to understand.”
And there it is, the timeworn admonition that only those who serve in the military understand the military mind, and the rest of us should just keep our opinions to ourselves.
Mark Engler: The Verizon Strike as the Next Wisconsin
The picket lines are up. This past weekend 45,000 Verizon workers on the East Coast, represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), went on strike. The cause of the strike was the company’s attempts to win massive concessions from the unions. Verizon argued that the employees should give up gains they had won over many years of struggle and negotiation in previous contract fights.
As the Wall Street Journal put it, “Verizon Communications Inc. is seeking some of the biggest concessions in years from its unions.” Demands include the weakening of health-care benefits, cuts in pensions, reduced job security, and elimination of paid holidays such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This despite the fact that the company reported billions in profit last year, and that, in the words of New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse, “Verizon’s top five executives received a total of $258 million in compensation, including stock options, over the last four years.” The unions argue that Verizon has made some $20 billion in profit in the same time period, and Citizens for Tax Justice has pointed out that the company has done so while paying little to nothing in corporate income taxes.
Michelle Chen: Target Comes Under Fire Around the World
The retail giant Target is under fire from all sides, for union-busting at home and labor violations overseas. The reports that have come out in the past several weeks highlight a continuum of cruelty in the global supply chain.
Though WalMart has long served as labor’s arch nemesis, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) has lately zeroed in on Target as a new battlefield-with its hundreds of thousands of employees and recent expansion into the supermarket sector. Although UFCW Local 1500 recently lost a vote to unionize a branch in Valley Stream, New York, their campaign deftly exposed Target’s arsenal of intimidation and smear tactics, which ranged from anti-union websites to leaflets warning that a yes vote might ruin the company and force the store to close.
Aug 14 2011
Town Hall Protests Only News If It’s A Tea Party
I’ll bet you any money that you didn’t see this on the TV news or in the traditional media. That’s because, unlike two years ago, these protests are Demograts.
Shouting “Stop Voting Against Jobs,” more than 500 Massachusetts residents converged outside of Senator Scott Brown’s $1,000-a-head fundraiser on the Boston waterfront August 10 — drowning out Brown’s speaking program. Join the fight at MASSIniting
While we were all engrossed in the fake deficit, raise the ceiling crisis, this is what was going on in hometowns of the tea party congress critters.
Dickenson, North Dakots
Berg meeting enflames tensions
FARGO – Divided economic philosophies enflamed a tense town hall meeting Thursday night with North Dakota Republican Rep. Rick Berg.
Some 200 area residents gathered to hear Berg answer for his political positions in Congress and to voice their own opinions on how to fix the nation’s fiscal situation.
Given the recent economic volatility, the federal government’s near-default and Congress’ subsequent debt package to avert it dominated much of the open-floor meeting.
Many residents disliked Berg’s support of the debt package because it failed to reduce long-term spending and to begin cutting the deficit.
Deer River, MI
Cravaack challenged on budget, economy in Deer River
Republican Rep. Chip) Cravaack said he wanted to bring down the tax rate to 25 percent for small businesses because higher taxes are passed on to consumers or result in layoffs.
Audience member Dave Garshelis of Cohasset said President George W. Bush tried that plan and it didn’t work.
“Is this an experiment or a concept or do you have information from somewhere that shows this works?” he asked. “I’m wondering when the jobs are going to happen.”
Cravaack said he wants reduced taxes with the addition of tax reform. He said jobs went to places like Mexico and China because of high taxes in the U.S.
Kevin Kooiker of Pequot Lakes wasn’t so sure of Cravaack’s answer and said the tax rate today is lower than it’s been in years. He said major corporations are known to be sitting on sizeable amounts of money instead of creating new jobs.
“People need to get more money in their pockets,” he said. “The stimulus bill was way too small.”
Tuscon, AZ
McCain deals with contentious crowd at Tucson town hall
TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) – Tuesday was a rough day for Sen. John McCain.
At a town hall meeting on the Northwest side the Arizona Republican took heat on just about everything, from the debt ceiling deal to the war in Afghanistan.
The venue was not large enough for all who wanted to attend and many were turned away. Those who made it inside expressed frustration with just about everything Congress is doing, or not doing.
There were people from across the political spectrum.
Before the town hall even started the senator laid out some ground rules to keep things civil, but had to keep reminding people what they were.
The town hall was contentious with audience members shouting at him and at each other and during one exchange, McCain was interrupted a few times.
Wilkes-Barre, PA
Small Group Protests ‘Lack of Jobs’ at Barletta Appearance
Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County– A group of protesters rallied outside a Chamber of Commerce breakfast attended by Congressman Lou Barletta in Wilkes-Barre Tuesday morning.
They say they were having a tough time getting Barletta to answer their questions directly– so they got creative.
The group of about 10 ralliers came armed with personal stories of their own hardships– and cardboard cutouts of the congressman.
They say the cut-outs haven’t provided any answers– in their opinion, just like the real lawmaker.
They chanted, “Lou…where are the jobs? Lou…where are the jobs?”
Silver City, NM
Pearce talk draws fire in Silver
SILVER CITY – A woman stormed out of Congressman Steve Pearce’s town hall meeting Tuesday night at the Silver City Senior Center, after calling Pearce a liar and saying “You’re just (BSing) everyone and we don’t buy it.”
“He got off on the wrong foot with me because he started to lie because he said the reason we got downgraded by S&P was because of our deficit,” said Anne Nitopi of Silver City. “That’s not the reason. Those very credit agencies approved junk bonds that turned out to not be worth the paper they were printed on, which created a financial collapse. The government’s inability to compromise is the reason they downgraded us. He took the debt ceiling debate and linked it to the debate about a budget and our deficit. They allowed the Tea Party extremists to threaten our country with default.”
Nothing happening here, move on this way
Aug 13 2011
Health and Fitness News
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.
A Greek salad on a bun makes a satisfying meal.
Packed in oil, smoked trout lends itself to a mixture a bit like tuna salad.
Use the leftover marinade to make another meal.
A goat cream cheese inspired this sandwich.
This creation uses the classic Mediterranean combination of sardines and spinach.
Aug 13 2011
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Paul Krugman: United States vs. Europe: Who Is Worse Off?
In recent online commentary for The New York Times, Simon Johnson, the former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, considered who is in worse shape – America or Europe?
“In the near term, the Europeans have the bigger problem – and this will only be compounded by slower growth in the United States (home to about one-quarter of the world economy),” Mr. Johnson wrote on July 28. “Over the longer haul, it remains to be seen when and how politicians in the United States will take up the real budget issues.”
Basically I agree with his assessment: Europe has more fundamental problems in sheer economic terms, because it adopted a single currency without the necessary institutions to make it workable. The United States has a long-run budget problem, but our current mess is entirely political. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier to solve.
New York Times Editorial: Magical Unrealism
There was nothing particularly surprising about the shrill skirmishing at the ideological edges of Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate in Iowa. What was shocking were the antics in the center.
In full public view, the party’s mainstream jumped the tracks of reality on issues of spending and taxes, brightly illustrating the ruinous magical thinking that has led to a downgrade of the nation’s credit and invited a double-dip recession. When asked if they would reject a deal to cut the deficit that had 10 times the amount of spending cuts as it had tax increases, the hands of all eight candidates went up. Even a tincture of new revenue, though mixed with huge cuts in government spending, would be too much for the modern Republican Party.
At some point, there has to be a line drawn between corporate profits and the sanctity of life. True, these are extremely hard times for the majority of jobless Americans, and the harder it gets for them financially speaking, the easier it becomes for the oil and coal executives to get their way, which doesn’t take much when they’ve successfully corrupted legislators to such a far-reaching extent that it’s easy to prove there is no distinction between the U.S. government and the oil and coal industries. They put down the big piles of cash-and they get what they want.
Operating in a corrupt political system explains why this president cares about one thing and one thing only: getting re-elected and making sure that he gets plenty of corporate money to compete against the Republican candidate who will also receive millions of dollars from the same industrial polluters. As journalist Travis Smiley and Princeton University Professor Cornel West explained to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! : “Obama is associated much more with the oligarchs than with poor people.” If starving children in America don’t sway the heart, will dying polar bears?
This is a president who threw his own people under the bus in order to please the billionaire oligarchs. For example, the Obama White House refused to be associated with Wisconsin’s union protesters as reported in the New York Times “when West Wing officials discovered that the Democratic National Committee had mobilized Mr. Obama’s national network to support the protests, they angrily reined in the staff at the party headquarters.”
Charles M. Blow: Genuflecting to the Tea Party
I must confess that every time Representative Michele Bachmann uttered the phrase “as president of the United States” during Thursday’s Republican presidential debate I blacked out a little bit, so I’m sure that I missed some things.
But one thing that I didn’t miss was the moment when all the candidates raised their hands, confirming that they felt so strongly about not raising taxes that they would all walk away from a hypothetical deficit-reduction deal that was as extreme as 10 parts spending cuts to one part tax increases.
That moment should tell every voter in America everything about this current crop of Know-Nothings – no person who would take such a stance is fit to be president of the United States or any developed country.
William Rivers Pitt: Next Stop: Train Wreck
And so here we are, at the next stage of this comic opera/disaster movie/smash-and-grab robbery known as the “debt-limit crisis.” Leadership in both the House and Senate have tapped the twelve members who will make up the so-called “Super-Committee,” which will be responsible for coming up with a plan to cobble together $1.2 trillion in spending cuts by Thanksgiving.
It is a motley crew, to be sure.
The Republican side of the equation is comprised of Senators Rob Portman (Ohio), John Kyl, (Arizona), and Patrick Toomey (Pennsylvania), along with Representatives Fred Upton (Michigan), Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Dave Camp (Pennsylvania). To a man – and note well that Republican leadership selected a racially and sexually homogenized crew for this – they are hard-liners who will likely not budge when it comes to tax revenues. Kyl is a boon companion of GOP Senator Mitch McConnell, Toomey was once president of the far-right group Club for Growth, and Portman used to be budget director for none other than George W. Bush. Each and every one of these men has taken Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, which bodes very ill for any revenue enhancements making it into the deal.
Joe Nocera: Boycott Campaign Donations!
Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief executive of Starbucks, has always been the kind of boss who wears his heart on his sleeve. So it came as no surprise to Starbucks employees when, on Monday, he sent out a long, passionate, companywide e-mail entitled “Leading Through Uncertain Times.”
In it, he wrote about his frustration over “the lack of cooperation and irresponsibility among elected officials as they have put partisan agendas before the people’s agenda” – creating an enormous crisis of confidence in the process. He said that Starbucks had a responsibility “to act in ways that can ease the collective anxiety inside and outside the company.” It needed to continue creating jobs. It had to maintain its generous package of employee benefits. And it was critical, Schultz wrote, for employees “to earn our customers’ trust by being respectful of their own life situations – whatever it may be.”
Mary Bottari: Recall Walker? It’s Up to Feingold
For the first time in the state’s history, Wisconsin recalled two sitting State Senators simultaneously. While it was a difficult and historic achievement in two districts that voted for Scott Walker in 2010, it fell short of the three seats needed to flip the Senate from Republican to Democratic control and put the brakes on Governor Scott Walker’s radical agenda.
While Walker’s collective bargaining bill sparked the recalls, voters were also worried about the state budgetary moves which cut almost a brillion from local schools, while giving out $200 million in tax breaks for big corporations. No jobs plan (other than tax breaks) has been proposed and, contrary to spin from the Governor, joblessness is growing in this state at twice the rate of the federal level.
Aug 13 2011
On This Day In History August 13
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
Click on image to enlarge
August 13 is the 225th day of the year (226th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 140 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1521, the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan falls to Cortes:
After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernan Cortes capture Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortes’ men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor.
Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325 A.D. by a wandering tribe of hunters and gatherers on islands in Lake Texcoco, near the present site of Mexico City. In only one century, this civilization grew into the Aztec empire, largely because of its advanced system of agriculture. The empire came to dominate central Mexico and by the ascendance of Montezuma II in 1502 had reached its greatest extent, extending as far south as perhaps modern-day Nicaragua. At the time, the empire was held together primarily by Aztec military strength, and Montezuma II set about establishing a bureaucracy, creating provinces that would pay tribute to the imperial capital of Tenochtitlan. The conquered peoples resented the Aztec demands for tribute and victims for the religious sacrifices, but the Aztec military kept rebellion at bay.
Cortes subsequently directed the systematic destruction and leveling of the city and its rebuilding, despite opposition, with a central area designated for Spanish use (the traza). The outer Indian section, now dubbed San Juan Tenochtitlan, continued to be governed by the previous indigenous elite and was divided into the same subdivisions as before.
Ruins
Some of the remaining ruins of Tenochtitlan’s main temple, the Templo Mayor, were uncovered during the construction of a metro line in the 1970s. A small portion has been excavated and is now open to visitors. Mexico City’s Zócalo, the Plaza de la Constitución, is located at the location of Tenochtitlan’s original central plaza and market, and many of the original calzadas still correspond to modern streets in the city. The Aztec sun stone was located in the ruins. This stone is 4 meters in diameter and weighs over 20 tonnes. It was once located half way up the great pyramid. This sculpture was made around 1470 CE under the rule of King Axayacatl, the predecessor of Tizoc, and is said to tell the Aztec history and prophecy for the future.
Aug 13 2011
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
If you do not get Current TV you can watch Keith here:
Aug 12 2011
Health Care Law Mandate Ruled Unconstitutional
This afternoon the individual mandate of the Affordable Health Care Act has been found unconstitutional. A three panel court of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Florida upheld a lower court ruling that had held the entire ACA to be unconstitutional. The ruling determined that individuals cannot be forced to purchase expensive private health care insurance from birth to death or face penalties. The court allowed the rest of the law to stand.
– It is immaterial whether we perceive Congress to be regulating inactivity or a financial decision to forego insurance. Under any framing, the regulated conduct is defined by the absence of both commerce or even the “the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities”-the broad definition of economics in Raich… To connect this conduct to interstate commerce would require a “but-for causal chain” that the Supreme Court has rejected, as it would allow Congress to regulate anything.
– In sum, the individual mandate is breathtaking in its expansive scope. It regulates those who have not entered the health care market at all. It regulates those who have entered the health care market, but have not entered the insurance market (and have no intention of doing so). It is over inclusive in when it regulates:it conflates those who presently consume health care with those who will not consume health care for many years into the future. The government’s position amounts to an argument that the mere fact of an individual’s existence substantially affects interstate commerce, and therefore Congress may regulate them at every point of their life.
In June, the 6th Circuit in Ohio had ruled that the mandate was constitutional for Congress to mandate Americans buy health care insurance. As David Kurtz at TPM makes a couple of very important points:
- usually these suits are only ever get heard before a three judge panel but because of the legal significance of this case the entire court may decide to hear the case. Either way this will in all probability be fought out in the Supreme Court.
- Because of the conflicting rulings between legal authorities, it is more likely than not that the case will get decided by the Supreme Court
Florida et al v. Dept. Of Health & Human Services et al
Aug 12 2011
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Paul Krugman: The Hijacked Crisis
Has market turmoil left you feeling afraid? Well, it should. Clearly, the economic crisis that began in 2008 is by no means over.
But there’s another emotion you should feel: anger. For what we’re seeing now is what happens when influential people exploit a crisis rather than try to solve it.
For more than a year and a half – ever since President Obama chose to make deficits, not jobs, the central focus of the 2010 State of the Union address – we’ve had a public conversation that has been dominated by budget concerns, while almost ignoring unemployment. The supposedly urgent need to reduce deficits has so dominated the discourse that on Monday, in the midst of a market panic, Mr. Obama devoted most of his remarks to the deficit rather than to the clear and present danger of renewed recession.
New York Times Editorial: A Scalpel, Not an Ax, for Medicaid
Many states are struggling to balance their budgets by curbing spending on Medicaid, a joint state-federal program that provides health insurance for the poor and disabled. They have little choice because Medicaid is one of their biggest, fastest-growing expenses. The risk is that injudicious cuts could harm their most vulnerable citizens.
A lawsuit, which the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear in the coming term, will determine whether there is any recourse for Medicaid beneficiaries who may have less access to health care because of such cuts. Beneficiaries need the right to sue – and to negotiate legal settlements – so that they can force states to consider whether reducing provider payments will limit access to care.
With world markets suddenly sagging under the weight of the Standard & Poor’s Aug. 5 downgrade of Treasury bonds, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., is disturbed by the monopolistic power of the ratings agencies-and still determined to curb their abuses, as he tried to do last year with an amendment to the Dodd-Frank banking reform bill.
In an exclusive Monday interview for The National Memo, the Minnesota Democrat said that the misconduct of the ratings agencies led directly to the economic catastrophe that S&P’s rating decision has made even worse. Franken wondered aloud why his proposed reforms of the ratings industry should still be subject to “study” rather than action by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
David Sirota: Collateral Damage in the War on Anonymity
From warrantless wiretapping to ever-present surveillance cameras, our world is right now in the midst of a long war on anonymity.
In the media and political arenas, we’ve seen paparazzi culture famously fetishize the outing of anonymous iconoclasts, from Watergate’s Deep Throat (Mark Felt) to a top CIA agent working on weapons of mass destruction (Valerie Plame). Likewise, in our communities, we now know that we are almost always being monitored in highly trafficked parks, malls, airports and stadiums-and as Slate recently reported, we may soon have apps on all of our smartphones that let us identify random faces in a crowd.
Eugene Robinson: Washington Deserves America’s Disapproval
It’s sobering that three-fourths of Americans, according to a new Washington Post poll, have little or no confidence in our elected leaders to solve the nation’s economic problems. At this point, though, it’s hardly surprising.
If anything, we should be shocked and alarmed that 26 percent of our fellow citizens apparently believe the president and Congress are going to make it all better. Are they not paying attention? Or are they delusional?
The manic-depressive swings we’ve seen in the stock market all week just serve to heighten the general anxiety, like the soundtrack of a horror film. Seesaw gains or losses of hundreds of points on the Dow tend to mask the overall trend, which is downward-and also distract attention from the fact that markets in Europe and Asia are heading in the same direction. The world is trillions of dollars poorer than it was just a couple of weeks ago.
Trillions, by the way, are the new billions.
Bill Boyarsky: America Is a Spark Away From Riots of Its Own
As President Barack Obama tried to calm a United States facing the threat of financial disaster, riots raged across the Atlantic in London and other British cities. Could it happen here, as our nation adopts British-style austerity and suffers through worsening unemployment? It certainly could, just as it has in the past.
As a reporter and then a columnist for the Los Angeles Times 20 years ago I covered the genesis, the explosion and the aftermath of the Los Angeles riot of 1992, described by author Lou Cannon as “the nation’s deadliest race riot since the Civil War.”
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