I’m getting my dog a photo ID. He was born in this country so he’s a citizen and has rights. After seeing pictures of the way the Romney’s treat animals, Fletcher is determined to vote in this year’s election.
Gotta give Fletch credit. And he’s got more brains than a lot of people who’ll be voting.
***
In a 5-4 decision, the five Republican justices on the Supreme Court declared global warming unconstitutional. According to reporters, Mother Nature refused to comment on the decision. However, observers expect planet Earth to defy the Hight Court’s ruling.
In a similar vein, the Republican dominated North Carolina legislature banned the phenomenom known as sea level rising from the Atlantic Ocean.
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature. She always has the last word.
OK, not exactly. But the legislators did forbid scientists from reporting data on rising sea levels. It seems developers will lose millions of dollars if buyers fear purchasing real estate that will soon be under water. Not underwater on a mortgage mind you, but literally under water.
The data are also harmful to the lodging industry. People will begin taking their affairs – vacation, business and otherwise – elsewhere.
It seems “ocean front property” is taking on a whole new meaning. As sea levels rise, ocean front property will be moving – inland.
***
UPW Senior Political Reporter Marcy Popindick revealed the real story behind the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act in an exclusive report filed just moments ago.
The five right wing wackos justices on the Court were fearful of the consequences – people might think they were little more than GOP political hacks – if they struck down Robamneycare. They decided among themselves that one them would have to take the hit and vote with the four liberals on the bench. Accordingly, Chief Justice John Roberts decided the fairest means to select the judge who would take the fall was to do one potato, two potato.
Antonin Scalia – Caricature (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)
Justice Antonin Scalia’s luck ran out and he was selected to vote with the liberals. However, when Scalia began to weep uncontrollably, Roberts swallowed hard and realized that as Chief Justice the buck stopped with him. So he voted with the liberals and now everybody gets to live with the half-soaked corporate written health insurance program popularly referred to as Obamacare that needed to be reformed the day it was signed into law.
Single-payer anyone?
***
I guess everybody’s seen or purchased a “feel good” church sponsored barbecue chicken dinner to help some poor child without health insurance pay for medical bills so the child can receive the care she needs.
I’ve said this before but it bears repeating because these “feel good” dinners are conducted by a bunch of Christian assholes who have voted repeatedly to deny full medical benefits to children (and to many adult Americans) and are fully prepared to vote again and again to continue to deny the health care that so many kids need but can’t afford. In many cases, the very parents of these kids have voted to deny their own children necessary care when the time comes. You can’t get any stupider than that.
Nothing wrong with selling a barbecued chicken dinner to help a volunteer fire department. To do so to pay for a child’s medical bills is an indication of a society’s distorted values. (Photo by orchidgalore via Flickr).
So these assholes sponsor a “feel good” barbecue chicken dinner and purchase a meal that costs six dollars and raises a couple of hundred bucks toward a medical bill that could easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Guess it makes them feel real good to buy one of these underdone, ill-prepared, poultry platters. As for me, every time I see one these “charity” affairs, it makes my blood boil.
***
Speaking of assholes, a group of whatcha call your fundamentalist Christians read from the Bible and prayed that the Supreme Court would declare Robamneycare unconstitutional. God didn’t answer their prayers. Oddly, he never does. No doubt that’s because these phony “doo-gooders” often pray to inflict ill on their fellow man so they’re just not God’s kinda people. Bet they sponsor feel good barbecue chicken dinners though.
***
CEO pay jumped 12 percent last year. Pay packages ran from $7.2 million to $16.5 million. And that’s just for the bank screw-ups who dumped the planet’s economy into a huge sinkhole. Many got even more.
Well, they’ve gotta live on something, don’t they?
***
The meek will inherit the earth. But not before the rich own heaven.
***
If you’re a monkey you’re in luck. Scientists have found a cure for the fatal hemorrhagic disease caused by the Ebola virus – but the serum works only for our ancestral anthropoids.
A cure for humans is not expected until 2014.
The disease is prevalent in Africa, so if you have plans for a fun trip to the inner sanctums of the continent once called “dark”, you might want to postpone the journey for a few years. Better safe than sorry.
***
Here’s experience you won’t find listed on Mitt Romney’s resume.
- Signed legislation establishing Romneycare in Massachusetts – a law that includes the individual mandate.
- Bain Capital CEO who earned countless millions of dollars for himself and investors buying and selling companies for profit often causing hard working Americans to lose their jobs, benefits and pensions.
- Outsourced numerous jobs – an on-going program that earned millions for investors at the cost of jobs for American workers.
We all know these activities are an indelible part of Romney’s notorious background. The question that remains is where will Mighty Mitt strike next.
***
Republicans make so many stupid remarks it’s hard to keep up. Here’s one from some right wing nobody who was the official campaign spokesman for Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY). Angered that Democratic senators of the fair sex are calling the Republican war on women the Republican war on women, this fella urged his fellow GOP extremists to “hurl some acid at those female Democratic senators.”
In took nearly a week and a boatload of criticism, but Hayworth, in a rare act of decency for a Republican, finally got around to firing the dufus she appointed as spokesman for her campaign.
***
If you were following the oral arguments in the ACA case, you are probably aware of the “broccoli” analogy Justice Antonin Scalia used to outfox an unprepared Solicitor General. He asked that if the government could force citizens to buy health insurance, could it not force them to eat broccoli? The answer, of course, is yes it could under certain circumstances.
English: The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, in 2010. Top row (left to right): Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Bottom row (left to right): Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In a dissent to Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion, Justice Ruth Bader argued brilliantly that the Commerce Clause did, in fact, apply. Striking down Roberts’ analogy with auto insurance which is unnecessary if you choose not to own a motor vehicle, Bader insisted that at some point everyone will require medical care and that necessity demands a person buy protection against what is an almost certain eventuality (perhaps the only exception being instant death due to an accident. Read the Article at HuffingtonPost).
To my way of thinking, justification for the so-called “broccoli argument” needn’t rest solely on the authority of the Commerce Clause. The broad powers of the Necessary and Proper Clause could be employed to justify legislation permitting the Department of Health and Human Services to carry out its mandate to protect the public.
Therefore broccoli (and health insurance) could, also, be considered a public health issue, If, for example, broccoli proved to be a cure for a contagious, fatal disease, the Congress could rightfully force all citizens to eat the vegetable. Indeed, it would be obligated to do so to protect the public health since refusing to eat broccoli would be a matter of life and death for millions of Americans. The same reasoning could be applied to health insurance since lack of it could also be a matter of life and death to any number of citizens.
Hopefully, the veggie could be synthesized and taken in pill or vaccine form. In that case, government would subsidize a program for those who could not afford to pay.
Now if you think the public health analogy describes a hypothetical situation, you are right. However, Scalia’s question also raised a hypothetical circumstance.
Moreover, government does already force people to receive medical care. Required immunization is a case in point.
Yes, people can refuse immunization. However, they and their children must remain separate from the community. For example, they are not permitted to enroll in public schools or colleges. In other words, they pay a penalty for non-compliance with the law.
However, I was thinking along somewhat different lines than vaccinations for common childhood diseases. For example, a deadly bacterium or virus that threatened whole populations. As a matter of life and death, we alI certainly hope government would exercise its power to force people to take a preventative..
Government could indeed pay for the cure using its taxing power. And I think that may be what Roberts was alluding to in his decision. However, during a public emergency, government has vast powers and they could be exercised either through the Commerce Claus or the Necessary and Proper Clause, as well as the taxing power.
I’m neither jurist nor lawyer. However, I would expect, even demand, government act swiftly to protect its citizens in case of such an emergency.
The only exception I would make would be for Antonin Scalia. He can do whatever he wants. My guess is that he would be first in line and screw the Constitution.
***
I thought the next president would be the first billion dollar chief executive. That was wrong. He will be the first multi-billion dollar president. It’s clear now as never before that the path to the White House is paved with dollars – billions of dollars.
Now we have the President of the United States dialing for baksheesh. How pathetic and disgraceful.
Yet to win in politics, you gotta have the geetus.
Begging for baksheesh.
Only in America.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Related articles
- Did Scalia Blow It? (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
- More Hints that Roberts Switched his Vote (volokh.com)
The DC Folly Trolley 