I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT!!!
Okay, folks, here’s the deal. Specifically, this happened this morning:
A federal appeals court on Friday struck down North Carolina’s requirement that voters show identification before casting ballots and reinstated an additional week of early voting.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit was an overwhelming victory for the Justice Department and civil rights groups that argued the voting law was designed to dampen the growing political clout of African American voters, who participated in record numbers in elections in 2008 and 2012.
“We can only conclude that the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent,” Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote for the panel.
The challenge to North Carolina’s law is one of several cases throughout the country seeking to eliminate strict voting rules in place for the first time in the November presidential contest.
Opponents of the law, led by the state NAACP, asked the three-judge panel to reverse a lower-court ruling that upheld the voting rules.
In 2013, North Carolina lawmakers overhauled election law soon after the Supreme Court got rid of a requirement that certain states with a history of discrimination receive approval before changing voting rules. Legislators eliminated same-day voter registration, rolled back of a week of early voting and put an end to out-of-precinct voting.
During oral arguments, Judges James A. Wynn Jr. and Henry F. Floyd remarked on the timing of the changes and on comments from a state senator who said lawmakers were no longer restrained by the “legal headache” of the Voting Rights Act.
The timing “looks pretty bad to me,” Floyd said, prompting murmurs of agreement from the courtroom packed with opponents of the law, some of whom traveled from North Carolina to the Richmond-based appeals court.
The same three-judge panel — Motz, Wynn and Floyd — had earlier ordered the state to keep same-day voter registration and out-of-precinct voting in effect as the case made its way through the courts.
— Appeals court strikes down North Carolina’s voter-ID law, Ann E. Marimow, Washington Post, 12:34 p.m. today
Now understand this: The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals went in the last seven years from an extreme rightwing court to a really good one.
So if you’re a progressive, whatever else you want to claim, do not—I mean it; I do not—claim it’s a good idea to sit out this election, or vote for Trump, in order to teach those Democrats a lesson. (Bernie Sanders and his supporters did that–taught the Democrats a lesson–actually. And those of us who will vote for Clinton still are. At least those of us who blog.)
If you don’t actually understand what the lower federal courts do, and you trust me at all, then trust me on this. This matters.
It matters, folks. It matters.
(I’d say, “Believe me.” But, well … that line’s already copyrighted for this election cycle. The copyright expires on November 9, 2016, I believe.)
And, yes, I predicted this would happen, because I know about the Fourth Circuit. And I know this will stick, because I remember that Antonin Scalia died a few months ago, and John Roberts hasn’t yet figured out how to resurrect him.
I wish I had a football to spike. I don’t, but maybe I’ll buy one today for the occasion.
But seriously, this is no game. I implore you not to treat it as one. It’s not football. And it’s not, um, Russian Roulette.
Unless you make it that.
It is not wrong to vote for the candidate who is on the ballot who best represents your positions and that you feel is best qualified for the position they are standing for.
I’m tired of being told that it is.
Of course it’s not wrong. I don’t understand this comment. My post is explicitly directed to progressives. Donald Trump is nothing even resembling a progressive, except supposedly on military intervention.
You may be buying his loopy protestations about ripping up trade deals and the like; if so I’m wondering whether you’d be interested in buying the deed I have to a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Such a deal! You’re entitled to take his word for whatever and vote for him.
My post was directed to people who, say, want Citizens United overturned, and the like. That’s not you, so I wasn’t directing my post to you.
I do have to say, though, that if Trump wins, the silver lining for me will be watching the slow-motion reactions of all those people who mistook Trump for an economic populist and voted for him, as the first few months, and then the next few, pass.
I’m surprised that you want a Wall Built and Muslims banned. But, whatever. To each his or her own.
As of today, these are the current vacancies in federal courts: 71 District Court, 10 Court of Appeals, and one Supreme Court. Obama has nominated 50 judges to fill those seats.
http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancies
It is imperative that not only Hillary Clinton win, but that the Democrats take back the US Senate. Otherwise, we will see very few judges appointed.
YES!
No, J. Goodwin, it isn’t wrong but sometimes it is pointless and counterproductive. And often, as we saw with Florida in 2000 with the Nader vote, the consequences are devastating for the agenda that those dissenting folks purport to support.
Like it or not we have a two party system. Are institutions and the legal structures that have developed are constructed around that premise. For the foreseeable future our national elections are going to be determined by that structure.
Now you can take your vote and uphold the righteous dignity of your principles while accomplishing little or nothing in furtherance of those principles or you can vote strategically for the candidate and party that is most likely to enact legislation that will get things closer to those principles (while recognizing that on many issues you won’t be able to stomach some of the policies of that party).
You can also understand that if you want alternatives at a national level the work starts at the local and state level. When Green candidates or Libertarians or whatever your flavor is start winning school board seats, city council and county commissioner seats and eventually state legislative seats so they can begin reforming the institutions that create exclusivity for two parties that hold power then and only then will their candidates be credible at a national level. You could also work locally within one of the two major parties to make the party more Progressive (or regressive if that’s your thing).
Until that time you are absolutely free to vote for the candidate that represents your positions. It isn’t wrong but it may be naive, childish, or silly and whether you choose to admit it or not it does have serious consequences. The judges appointed by the Democratic nominee are far more likely to support voting rights, social justice, and economic justice. They may do so in ways that fall far short of your preferences but it is unquestionable that they will be far less damaging to a Progressive agenda then judges chosen by a Republican president.
I don’t particularly care for Mrs. Clinton. She is far more likely to use military force than I would like. At least some of her economic advisors are going to promote a more neoliberal agenda than I would like although the result of the Sanders campaign is that voices of economic justice and equity have a far louder voice and a much better seat at the table than before.
Now personally I think Dr. Stein is about three fries short of a Happy Meal and Gary Johnson is the face of a party that thinks Ayn Rand was an economic and philosophic genius. So I suppose there isn’t a candidate that best represents my positions. But for those who would try to tell me that there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Donald Trump (or any generic Republican) and HRC then I would suggest they get their eyes, ears, and possibly sanity checked.
I’ve followed several threads here on AB over the last couple months where people have made increasingly shrill and strained arguments that Mrs. Clinton is a warmonger, a felon, nothing more than a corporatist shill and whatever other epithets they could dream up. Most of it is of very little difference than the Clinton Derangement Syndrome that those on the Right have engaged in for the last twenty-five years.
There are no perfect candidates, there are no perfect politicians – our system is deeply flawed on several levels (as is pretty much every system of governance that has ever been thought up). “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Government, governance and the institutions that support it is an ongoing effort. There are never any solutions, just temporary paths that require ongoing vigilance and effort, a process of constant checking and rechecking, of compromise, of taking two steps forward and one step back, of recognizing that every answer, every program, every policy, no matter how well conceived is always subject to unintended consequences.
The fact that there is no perfect policy or position, that there are no perfect answers or solutions is not an excuse or a call for fatalistic acceptance of chaos. Life (and politics) is an ongoing effort at doing the best we can do. We build, we tear down, we build again, hopefully having learned something.
J. Goodwin, if you want to sit on the sidelines and argue that your precious vote can only go to the candidate you deem most perfect, you are not wrong. You are, however, not exempt from the consequences of your choice. If your choice leads, even tangentially, to the election of Donald Trump then you will be responsible, at least on some level, for the likely pain and chaos that will result. And if, like some have argued here on AB, you insist that there is no difference between Trump and Clinton, that both are equally damaging then you are not only wrong but deluded.
Don’t miss these two terrific articles today:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/29/a-tale-of-two-conventions-as-gop-nominates-a-dangerous-lunatic-democrats-reaffirm-commitment-to-diverse-america/
and
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/how-progressive-was-hillary-clintons-acceptance-speech
The first article links to the second one.
We Sanders supporters have won. And it’s because we won that Clinton probably will win the election.
I’m so, so proud.
Edit second paragraph – “Our” institutions not “Are” institutions
Agree and while I personally thought Obama was way too timid in his first term in trying to work with people who had purposefully set out to make him a failed president even if it meant we would have a failed country, once he got reelected he has been taking a much more liberal/progressive approach only to be stymied by the holdover federal judges from the Reagan, Bush and Bush administrations. It would do no good to get some really leftist legislation through the Congress only to have it declared unconstitutional by the courts. And Beverly as much as you annoy me at times, I accept that you will support Hillary against Trump and applaud that rational decision. I also thought that Hillary’s speech last night was significantly more liberal/progressive than I expected so maybe she is listening to you.
Terry, the big story out of Clinton’s speech last night indeed is how liberal/progressive it was and how surprised many pundits were about that. It’s THE story today.
Run to the right continues:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/clinton-embarks-bus-tour-courting-anti-trump-republicans/story?id=40994187
This actually doesn’t mean what it would seem to mean. Here are links to two articles about what’s really happening, suddenly:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/29/a-tale-of-two-conventions-as-gop-nominates-a-dangerous-lunatic-democrats-reaffirm-commitment-to-diverse-america/
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/how-progressive-was-hillary-clintons-acceptance-speech
The New Yorker article, posted this morning, is REALLY interesting. and the WP one by Greg Sargent this morning, which links to the New Yorker article, is on the money, I think.
It’s a new world, suddenly. Very new. And VERY sudden.
Yes, Bev, on the money.
Regarding the “going right,” pursuing alienated moderate Repubs does not require going right. There are plenty of principled, mostly moderate Repubs, who simpy reject Trump because they recognize he is a fascist. They do not particularly like Hillary, but they are willing to hold their noses and support her because they do not want to see the end of the US as we know it and a fascist dictatorship. She does not need to go right to get them, and she has reaffirmed the strongly Bernie-influenced platform so far. Will she follow through in office? Maybe on some items we hope.
As for her hawkishness, that is certainly there and has also long been a major problem for me. I note three things. The first is the unpleasant fact that in the US the first woman prez will have to come in appearing tough, Iron Lady syndrome and all that. Fortunately, she already has that rep, so does not need to go nuts proving it. The second is that she has accepted the main foreign policy achievement of Obama, which she opposed when they ran against each other, namely the Iranian nuclear deal, which is super important. Trump will tear that up, and anybody like the totally idiotic Ilsm who wants to vote for Trump because she voted for the Iraq war over a decade ago needs to face up to this. The final one is that while Trump may be less inclined to get in a fight with Putin, he wants to spread nuclear weapons to Japan and South Korea, to increase torture even beyond what the Bush admin did, and he has talked killing famiiles of terrorists, and beyond that seems to know near nothing about foreign policy in general. She may be more hawkish than many of us would like, but nobody can accuse Hillary of not knowing what is going on out there and who is doing it.
Two terrific articles today on the point of your first paragraph:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/29/a-tale-of-two-conventions-as-gop-nominates-a-dangerous-lunatic-democrats-reaffirm-commitment-to-diverse-america/
and
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/how-progressive-was-hillary-clintons-acceptance-speech
The first article links to the second one.
Barkley:
Kool comments as usual. Thanks for stopping by. Bev writing on this topic is what she does best.
Vote early and often — no ID required!!
Sounds like a plan!
The elderly citizens who voted in every election since they turned 21 (the original voting age) so many decades ago and who have no way to track down their birth certificates even though they were born in this country rather than in, say, Kenya will definitely take your advice.
Legislating from the extreme cases is pure nonsense, Beverly. I’m sure he has enough ID to get Social Security and Medicare.
Actually all they need is a Social Security number.
I really wonder how many folks are left who do not know the information for getting a birth certificate. After all you need to know when and were you were born. If we talk about folks born after 1935 for example a births were supposed to be registered in each state. (All be it that it is possible even if you have the original, it could not have the raised seal required for example). So all that is needed is for folks to contribute to a fund to pay the expense (typically 10 to 15 per person to get a copy).
Now on another point a college student who is registered to vote and has a drivers license from a different state (or even address in state) is technically in violation of other laws. You can’t be a resident in two places at one time. Typically after establishing residency you have 30 days to change your drivers license.
Lyle, no, the problem is that if a state wants to impose a certification requirement to receive a voter card for a citizen, the STATE PAYS all fees required to get the necessary documents. Otherwise, it’s the equivalent of a poll tax, which was outlawed long ago. If NC and the rest of these restrictive states want to avoid “voter fraud” (the crime that nobody can seem to find), then they need to include funding to pay for the voter ID, not force that mandate onto the citizens of the state.
By all means let us consider the Supreme Court, one more far left leaning judge and our freedom to decide how spend our own money is lost.
Economic Decision-Making is an Activity Subject to Congress’s Commerce Clause Power (INSOC? No, just another far left leaning circuit judge)
Economic Decision-Making Is an Activity Subject to Congress’s Commerce Clause Power Mead v. Holder, Judge G.Kessler
PPACA:
The requirement regulates activity that is commercial and economic in nature: economic and financial decisions about how and when health care is paid for, and when health insurance is purchased.
Perhaps Hil will rework PPACA and the issue will be raised again. Wouldn’t it be great if SCOTUS were to declare that Congress CAN regulate our economic decisions?
Mike:
Under the PPACA, your money is spent up front. Under the old way it came through the back door which was more expensive. If you live in a state which did not expand Medicaid; thank you for pimping yourselves. The rest of us will reap the benefit of you and the others being dolts. If you have an argument over the economics of this, you are welcome to express an opinion.
“[The] problem is that if a state wants to impose a certification requirement to receive a voter card for a citizen, the STATE PAYS all fees required to get the necessary documents.”
North Carolina provides a free Voter ID card.
Does it also pay the cost of duplicate copies of birth certificates, marriage licenses, travel to county offices, if necessary? Does it pay for your time in getting errors on these documents corrected?
Just as Tx does also. The problem is the cost to get the documents in the first place. Although I just checked the Indiana requirements and in the event of no picture ID a letter from your boss, an income tax return, or a copy of a social security card will get you a copy of your birth certificate for $15. It is the expense of replacing a lost birth certificate.
Note also that because of the patriot act none of the folks affected can use most of the banking system because no id no account except for prepaid cards.
Note also for Tx at least if you are over 64 you can apply annually to vote by mail for all elections and no id is needed then.
So why does one have to show TWO forms of ID to get a gun?
So you can shoot yourself on the way to the polling place.
Clinton talking progressive is fantasy.
Talk is cheap.
Barkley,
Choosing the lesser evil remains evil!
Clinton’s vote for eternal, open ended use of military force anywhere that they cannot shoot back is enough for me to not select the Clinton brand of evil.
You may call me an idiot, okay. If you believe a tiny fraction of what went on in Phillie I suspect you have a perception issue and are challenged with applying critical thinking.
Bev,
On dangerous lunatics at WASPOST: telling everyone not to vote for a Trump as a dangerous lunatic you have a hard sell with Clinton.
It is the bait and switch like pulling out Goebbels’ propaganda book and saying Trump is a dangerous foreign agent because Russians found out how corrupt the DNC apparatus works.
Then that “nation of inclusiveness” pap……… what is that? So democrats are nicer than GOP. How does that reconcile permanent war, and open checkbooks to defend Europe when they are not threatened!
The glass ceiling should not have been broken by a female version of Nixon.
Ilsm,
I understand that your mind has been destroyed by the fact that every dollar you have in your pocket now, and in the future, has been placed there by your mindless following of the MIC.
I understand that your rejection of that(though of course you are still taking the cash) weighs against what is left of your mind.
I implore you to stop embarrassing yourself and to let us innocents og on with our lives.
We hope you can find peace; we just want you to stop talking.
However, I will take your word for it and listen to your thoughts if you tell me you have rejected your ill-gotten gains.
I won’t like it, but I will do it.
#ilsm, There is no evidence what so ever that HRC is anything more dangerous, depraved nor despicable than a ’60s vintage moderate Republican. Think Jacob Javits or Nelson Rockefeller. That plays out as supportive of social progressiveness and relatively strong corporatism. It’s not as left leaning as would be a real social democrat, but they are very few and far between. So start here with HRC, but don’t lose the momentum Sanders has ignited and fight at the local level for more genuinely socially and economically progressive Democrats.
If you’re seriously thinking to vote for Trump then you must be on drugs and removed from reality. The man is saying it loud enough. He’s most of the bad things people say he is, but most of all he is deceitful. And he is as much a business failure as he is successful. He’s lucky to have started out with a few hundred million dollars from his father’s real estate empire, giving him lots of room for falling on his face. He was only smart in his Manhattan investments, but any one with the cash, which he had, couldn’t help making a fortune grow. Manhattan has been almost fool proof for several decades.
Beverly Mann,
Now you’re just being unfair! These laws were designed to prevent rampant voter fraud, which is a very serious problem – “everyone knows that. I saw it on the Hannity show.” As reported below, a law professor from Loyola, an expert in constitutional law and the law of democracy (with apparently a lot of time on his hands) wrote:
“I’ve been tracking allegations of fraud for years now, including the fraud ID laws are designed to stop. In 2008, when the Supreme Court weighed in on voter ID, I looked at every single allegation put before the Court. And since then, I’ve been following reports wherever they crop up.
To be clear, I’m not just talking about prosecutions. I track any specific, credible allegation that someone may have pretended to be someone else at the polls, in any way that an ID law could fix.
So far, I’ve found about 31 different incidents (some of which involve multiple ballots) since 2000, anywhere in the country. If you want to check my work, you can read a comprehensive list of the incidents below.
To put this in perspective, the 31 incidents below come in the context of general, primary, special, and municipal elections from 2000 through 2014. In general and primary elections alone, more than 1 billion ballots were cast in that period.”
You know what that means? The federal court in NC – and Progressives like you! – have now paved the way for another 31 acts of voter fraud over the course of the next 14 years and out of the next billion votes cast. Shameless… Shameless…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/
EMichael,
Mighty kind of you.
Jack,
You can take the Goldwater gal out to Arkansas but getting the Bircher out of her mind is a stretch. I grew up with Rockie as governor.
Sanders could not beat the DLC running corruption, I will not let it go another cycle.
On local level I will vote against the DNC corruption in every ticket. The choices less stark.
I do not care to buy perpetual war (Birchers against Putin) to keep Rowe v Wade, or be inclusive to LGBT, or rein in NRA.
The Dems are like the annuity salesman taking the ‘nice guy approach’ to sell long term CD’s at sad rates with chains.
Beverly Mann,
While I’m getting all of my gripes out on the table, I read Sargent’s piece. He’s a meanie. He had the cojones to write that Trump has a “uniquely troubling temperament.”
If you want the truth, just ask The Donald: “I have the best temperament of anybody that’s ever run for the office of president.”
So there! Nyah!
Run,
The language of the PPACA mandate, Judge Kessler’s opinion that economic decisions are “activity” affecting commerce and thus Congress does indeed have the authority under the CC to regulate each person’s economic decisions, and the agreement of four far left supreme court judges in NFIB say it all.
If you want your economic decisions, you can keep(or think) them, but you are going to have to pay the penalty.
Mike:
You and most of America who are qualified under the PPACA pay upfront for healthcare rather than subsidize it at the back door. There is no back dooring the expense of it with federal subsidy to hospitals taking care of the indigent upon the rest of the population. The penalty being it is the transparency of doing it in such a way and the dirty laundry is being aired for all to see including Congress. That is the economic argument being made today. What has happened in SCOTUS (and I have probably been there more than you) is the right question has not been asked or presented to the court. Of course finding the right question can be an issue. Indeed too, it is also about interpretation.
Is it your opinion;
– To do nothing and continue subsidizing the back door.
– To do the PPACA and subsidize at the front door.
– Or strike all subsidized healthcare and let them die.
I read part of Kessler’s opinion. This does nothing in shifting the cost of healthcare insurance as much as the shifting of the cost of healthcare. Insurance is not the cost driver and reflects healthcare cost. Healthcare drives the cost of healthcare itself. We seem to forget the true argument.
On going right:
It really depends what your objective is.
Is your objective “Elect Hillary Clinton President of the United States” or is your objective (or is your additional objective) “Elect a legislature that will support progressive appointments and policy agenda items.”
Because encouraging disaffected Republican voters to come out and vote a split ticket only accomplishes one of those objectives, and it is not the one that results in progressive legislative victories and court appointments.
My post is to encourage disaffected progressives and Democrats–labor union members; Bernie holdouts–to vote for Clinton. It’s unlikely that they would vote for Ron Johnson rather than Russ Feingold, for example.
JG,
Umm, if Clinton is elected her court appointments will be far, far more progressive than Donal Trump’s.
No Dem candidate for Congress is going to do a good job of getting disaffected Reps to vote for them. That’s why turnout is important.
“If you want your economic decisions, you can keep(or think) them, but you are going to have to pay the penalty.”–MHans-
Yep, cause after all we are the ones who are going to pay your bill. You should pay something.
“Does it also pay the cost of duplicate copies of birth certificates, marriage licenses, travel to county offices, if necessary? Does it pay for your time in getting errors on these documents corrected?”
You should already have those. If you’ve lost them, that’s your fault.
Yup. It says right there in the Constitution that your right to vote depends on whether you still have that copy of your birth certificate that your parents gave you when you were five.
What a dumb comment.
Note that copies of vital records can be ordered online in most states. So you don’t have to travel to get them.
Of course as I noted earlier you have no access to the banking system if you don’t have official picture ID also. (with the possible exception of prepaid cards). Banks now ask for ID if you open an account according to the patriot act. label it as vital records. This makes loosing the documents harder.
Correct marriage licenses will be needed to apply for a spouses payment from social security also, so they need to be corrected anyway.
Certified copies of these documents are not cheap and a FedEx or UPS change is automatically added. This conversation with you began when you said ID cards are free.
Of course, since you cannot get a job or welfare without a photo ID, why would you need banking services anyway?
Actually most of the people at issue are fairly elderly and have bank accounts into which their Social Security checks are deposited electronically.
Although the neofederalists would not approve (the federalists thought property qualifications for voting were the only way the republic would survive as the riff-raf would vote for money for them (see John Adams on the Subject).
Now here is a link that defines (in North Carolina what documents are need to get TNAF:http://www.myreporter.com/2013/09/is-a-photo-id-required-when-applying-for-welfare-including-food-stamps/
Note that there are other ways to prove your ID besides a photo ID.
If the folks are over 65 in Tx they can apply every year to vote by mail for all elections in that year no ID required. I don’t know about other states, but it sort of makes sense that states move to mail voting for all. Short of that a mail voting option for all elections of a given year makes sense for elderly folks at a minimum (ideally IMHO for all).
I agree that voting should be only by mail. I believe it’s that way in Washington state and has been since the early ’90s.
Ilsm,
The most important foreign policy issue for the US of the last five years has been the Iranian nuclear deal, supported by everybody in the world except for the Israeli leadership (its intel military leaders supported it, some of them at least) and GOPsters in the US. That is it. It is very important, and it was very hard to achieve. Hillary disagreed with Obama on this in 2006, declaring it hopeless and taking a hard line on Iran. But as SecState she initiated the opening of negotiations on this with Iran through Oman, and she appears to strongly support it.
Trump wants to tear it up. You really think this is a good idea? You want to ignore his complete opposition to the best foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration that she was part of and supports because you are still peeing over her vote over a decade ago on the Iraq war resolution, a vote she has since admitted was a mistake? When did you let your brain fall out of your head onto the sidewalk for you then to massively defecate all over?
BR,
It is actually worse than that. Despite all evidence to the contrary, these people believe that Clinton’s vote, and her vote alone, led to the invasion of Iraq.
In terms of math that is ridiculous; in terms of the actual legislation it is incorrect.
It is just another clear example of the Clinton Derangement Syndrome, and Ilsm is as deranged as anyone.
EMichael.
So the far left has decided that it is not enough to tell people what activity not to do in any instance even remotely related to commerce, now they claim authority over decisions. That is not extreme in your opinion?
Beverly has consistently defended left wing extremism on the supreme court as counterbalance to supposed right wing extremism. Though
Evenwel v. Abbott has come a gone without a single vote for the proposition that worried her so, still the fear of imagined right wing extremism blinds her to left wing extremism.
Hillary proposed amending the first amendment (to overturn Citizens United) during her acceptance speech and not a peep about that. I suppose we ought to reassured since Hillary proposed actually amending the first amendment rather than having her pawns on the supreme court simply hear a similar case and overturn Citizens United, as she plans for the second amendment.
The reason no one is talking about here proposal to amend the Constitution is because that thought has been floated around ever since the Roberts Court subverted the First Amendment.
I am not going to waste any more time talking about the ACA. Obviously you feel it is an intrusion of some sort while ignoring the fact that everyone, everyone uses healthcare. Making those that can pay for it actually do so is not in any way taking away people’s authority.
Healthcare costs are the most important problem we have in this country(everyone in this country) and there is no way to contain costs in the system if people outside the system can access the system.
EMichael,
And the heck with the precedent that would be set, eh? Had there been one more vote for the proposition that economic decisions are activity in the CC sense that decision would not be limited to PPACA. Of course Congress could have reached same result regarding health care funding by going the familiar income tax incentive route, but we must never waste a crisis!
Citizens Unitied was a shit sandwich but the alternatives were actually worse than the majority opinion. Will Hillary revive the old canard that the First Amendmnt protects only “the Press” rather than the right of all persons to publish their sentiments on any subject of public nature? Will we have a government approved press, meaning only certain corporations would be allowed to publish or would come under the protection of the first amendment? Trying to prevent independent expenditures by US corporations is a fools errand since corporations can simply start a publishing arm and there is little Congress can do except claim some authority to say what is an approved publishing company.
“Will we have a government approved press”
MH,
Straw men.
I am done.
EMichael,
If that was a strawman, then what is the alternative that I am supposedly side stepping?
Any way you slice it, the government will either have to bless all corporations (as in the CI majority opinion) or will have to bless some corporations as enjoying first amendment protection but not others.
MH,,
You are just getting worse by the minute. This is not about media outlets. It is about corporations hiding behind anonymity and influencing elections with vast sums of cash.
The Koch Brothers are more than welcome to start their own media outlet, that certainly is not the same as flooding state and local elections with cash to move their chosen policies forward.
EMichael,
You need to reread the case. The Citizens United court upheld the disclosure requirement, but struck down the corporate independent expenditures restrictions.
I trust that you know the difference between an independent expenditure and a donation to a candidate’s campaign.
From Citizens United: :
For the same reasons we uphold the application of BCRA §§201 and 311 to the ads, we affirm their application to Hillary. We find no constitutional impediment to the application of BCRA’s disclaimer and disclosure requirements to a movie broadcast via video-on-demand. And there has been no showing that, as applied in this case, these requirements would impose a chill on speech or expression
(and)
The judgment of the District Court is reversed with respect to the constitutionality of 2 U. S. C. §441b’s restrictions on corporate independent expenditures. The judgment is affirmed with respect to BCRA’s disclaimer and disclosure requirements. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Run,
Below is a short essay I wrote when PPACA was being debated.
As opposed to those who insist that drastic reform of the health insurance system in the US is needed, I would argue that we already have the optimum mix of government and private insurance. Note that I say optimum, as I am not a utopian, I do not believe there is a perfect system that could solve all of our problems.
In our current heath insurance system, individuals get health insurance through their employer, purchase individually, receive Medicaid if in poverty, or may receive Medicare if disabled or retired. Those whose resources are above poverty levels but find they are unable to afford any plan face the risk that should they suffer serious injury or illness they will have pay out of pocket and possibly wipe out all savings. However, emergency health care is not denied, so there is in place right now a safety net, in other words a defacto health insurance plan for all.
Let us be clear that the argument put forth by both supporters of the PPACA plan and supporters of single payer is that receiving a comprehensive health insurance plan, not merely health care, is among our basic rights.
Claims that those who oppose further government involvement in health insurance are merely selfish fall flat when one considers how much Americans already pay for the health care of those unable to pay for their own care. Those with private health insurance subsidize others who can’t afford insurance in the form of costs which are inflated to cover services to the uninsured who are unable to pay. Furthermore working people currently pay into government health systems in the form of Medicare payroll deductions and also through taxes paid to state governments, as state governments also provide a share of Medicaid costs. The “selfishness” claim is further countered when one considers that private insurance plans themselves are forms of cost sharing. In employer provided insurance, family plans are usually a set rate so that small families subsidize larger families, also the healthy pay at same rate as those who use such plans much more often. Along with the cost sharing aspect, employer provided plans frequently have co-pays and other restrictions which encourage personal responsibility regarding use of the plan.
As it stands now, most Americans get their health insurance through private insurers while government provides for the truly needy and well as many retirees. That is how it should be. Were government to take a larger role in providing health insurance, it would weaken its ability to carry out its essential role of unbiased referee. The principles of good governance tell us that no one should be both the referee and a player, and so the government should avoid as much as possible this conflict of interest. That the government can not completely avoid this conflict of interest is not a valid rationale for abandoning the principal altogether.
While the mix of private and government run health insurance is more or less as it should be, that does not mean that nothing should be done to improve either. Private insurance could certainly be improved to make it more portable and to create a more competitive market with greater variety of plans. For instance comprehensive plans like HMOs might work well for middle and upper wage earners with families, but plans with very low payments and high co-pays might suit younger or single persons better. Also government ought to fulfill its proper role and provide better oversight/regulation of for-profit insurers to avoid the fraudulent refusals of payments that supporters of Single Payer cite as evidence against for-profits. Current government provided plans could also be reviewed to eliminate fraud and waste.
Lastly the administration’s plans to cut costs by gaining access to everyone’s digitized heath records and mandating that everyone purchase a health insurance plan ought to be met with a big HELL NO! This complete abridgement of the Fourth Amendment we are told is necessary to hold down health costs. But if giving up our personal and economic freedoms is the cost, the supposed gain is not worth the price. The deal is far worse when one considers that the promise of cost savings, above and beyond what could be accomplished by tweaks to the current system of insurance, is a completely empty promise.
You wish me to explain an umpteenth time like Maggie Mahar did what is wrong? Your complaint ignores the issues. You wish more of the same as what existed. I say no. Even the VA is far better than what exists in commercial healthcare as they have to discuss their mistakes. Commercial healthcare and insurance does not.
EMichael,
Since you agree that The Koch Brothers are more than welcome to start their own media outlet, maybe you will change tour mind on whether Hillary’s plan to amend the first amendment to overturn CU is extreme?
“[Most] of the people at issue are fairly elderly and have bank accounts into which their Social Security checks are deposited electronically.”
And how did they get either the bank accounts or the Social Security without ID?
We’re not talking about not having ID, or about never having ID.
When I was five years old, my mother took me downtown to the Social Security office and got me a Social Security card. I don’t recall specifically, but I’m guessing that she had a copy of my birth certificate with her. I do not have that copy of my birth certificate, and the copy I had was lost in a move, so three years ago I ordered two certified copies and was charged, if I recall correctly, about $55, which included the FexEx two-day-delivery charge that was a requirement.
As for bank accounts, I don’t know how old you are, but I can tell you that my accounts, which date back to pre-Patriot Act days, were opened without my birth certificate. I don’t recall what I used for ID but assume it was my driver’s license, obtained without my birth certificate.
Sorry, Warren, but do you seriously not know that this is the way things usetah work?
I’m not sure what your problem is, Beverly. If someone has lost his birth certificate, why should someone else have to pay for a replacement?
“[Most] of the people at issue are fairly elderly and have bank accounts into which their Social Security checks are deposited electronically.”
Since Blacks have a shorter life expectancy than do Whites, the assertion that this is anti-Black voter suppression contradicts your statement.
Furthermore, since the elderly tend to align with the Republican Party, the assertion that this is an anti-Democrat tactic also contradicts your statement.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/168083/seniors-realigned-republican-party.aspx