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PoliGAF 2014 |OT2| We need to be more like Disney World

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This Valerie Jarret stuff is overblown. Its the confluence of republican hysteria surrounding every Obama advisor with democrats trying to pin the tail on a donkey thats holding back the REAL Barack.
 

Crisco

Banned
No mention of IS's "caliph" potentially getting smoked over the weekend? This campaign against IS is really typical of everything Obama's done. Partisans on both sides hate it but it's actually been quite effective while limiting civilian casualties and US troop exposure. I think the number of sorties vs weapons released has been very telling and speaks to a lot of WH controls to limit collateral damage. Very well done so far IMO.
 

gcubed

Member
The right wing media is really going all put on the antiobamacare stuff. Lol. The new congress is going to waste so much time on that.

meh, its a new year, so the house will have to vote on it 30 more times, but, even with GOP control, it will never get to the senate
 
The right wing media is really going all put on the antiobamacare stuff. Lol. The new congress is going to waste so much time on that.

Maybe, maybe not. I think they'll do one full repeal vote, just for the "CONGRESS REPEALS OBAMACARE" headline on Drudge, but after that? They'll go after various parts but that's about it.

I hope they shitcan the work requirement, that shit is horrible and so easy to abuse and be scapegoated. That was a horrible policy idea given the entire point of the law was to give people individual, non-employer options for healthcare.
 

Averon

Member
Scalia breaks his rules all the time. Thomas is a strict textualist. The others idk.

The question still becomes, why did they grant cert.

The most optimistic side of me thinks they granted cert to finally "deal" with Obamacare once and for all and to stop all these silly lawsuits against the law. But that is baseless speculation (and hope) on my part.
 

ivysaur12

Banned
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/upshot/the-enduring-republican-grip-on-the-house.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&abt=0002&abg=1

Whatever doubts existed about the Republican grip on the House should now be gone.

By picking up at least a dozen House seats in the elections last Tuesday, the Republicans cemented a nearly unassailable majority that could last for a generation, or as long as today’s political divides between North and South, urban and rural, young and old, and white and nonwhite endure.

Democrats might well reclaim the Senate and hold the presidency in 2016. But any Democratic hopes of enacting progressive policies on issues like climate change and inequality will face the reality of a House dominated by conservative Republicans. The odds that the Republicans will hold the Senate and seize the presidency are better than the odds that Democrats will win the House, giving the Republicans a better chance than Democrats of enacting their agenda.

After all of the remaining races are resolved, the G.O.P. will finish with about 249 seats. The Democrats would need to flip 32 seats to reclaim the chamber, but just 10 Republicans hail from districts with a Democratic Cook partisan voting index, a statistic to measure how far a congressional district leans toward the Republican or Democratic Party, compared with the national average. Because so many Republicans represent conservative districts, the G.O.P. might even retain the House in a “wave” election, like the ones that swept Democrats to power in 2006 and brought Republicans back to power in 2010.

Even if the Democrats could retake the House in an anti-Republican wave, it probably won’t come with a Democratic president to take advantage of it. The party with the presidency rarely makes big gains in Congress. As my colleague Lynn Vavreck put it, the economy elects presidents; presidents elect Congress.

In other words, a Republican president is probably a prerequisite to a Democratic House. And even a Republican president might not assure another wave like 2006 or 2010, which itself would not even assure a Democratic House.

Democrats can't win the House. Senate flip flops back and forth every 2-4 years. Republicans probably can't win a presidency. Fun times in The World's Greatest Democracy.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
The most optimistic side of me thinks they granted cert to finally "deal" with Obamacare once and to stop all these silly lawsuits against the law. But that is baseless speculation (and hope) on my part.

So if SC says the subsidies are fine, what's the next major attack point? I know there's discussions about the durable goods tax, the full-time/part-time definitions, but neither of those are looked at as illegal or unconstitutional, but more like wishlist for change.
 

Crisco

Banned
Medical device tax is probably the first and most likely to gain bipartisan support after a vote for full repeal. At the end of the day, I don't think Obama allows a single modification to his law by a GOP Congress, unless it's in exchange for a budget deal with progressive tax policy or something along those lines.
 
Do you think the House could basically go into an era of GOP dominance like it was from 1932 to 1994 with Democrats?

I just can't believe this is the end result of the Obama administration, only six years after the end of the Bush administration the Republican Party is now on course to hold more power than it has had since the 1920s. Karl Rove's "permanent Republican majority" people laughed at after 2012 is now coming to fruition.

They now control both Houses of Congress, the judiciary, and the majority of governorships and state legislature. The majority of red states especially in the South and the West and a couple of purple or blue ones like Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin have gone to single party Republican rule.
 
This Valerie Jarret stuff is overblown. Its the confluence of republican hysteria surrounding every Obama advisor with democrats trying to pin the tail on a donkey thats holding back the REAL Barack.

They've been pushing this 'Valerie Jarret as the Muslim-whisperer' story for years. It has gone no where. If you ask most people who Valerie Jarret is, most people will have no clue

Except the hardcore am hate radio crowd which will tell you that she's part of the Muslim Brotherhood indoctrinating Barack HUSSEIN Obola!
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
no progressive policy till late 2020s and I'll be in my 30-40s, thanks obama.

More like thanks, Reid, Lieberman, Hagan, and whoever else caused the Obamacare snafu in the first place by refusing a public option. If Reid got rid of the filibuster when he had the chance, or the democrats stuck together behind a public option, ACA wouldn't have been nearly as hated as it was in 2010. Of course people aren't going to like a mandate to buy private insurance forced on them.

Same with them doing less stimulus than was needed.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
can I get a tldr? I used up my National Review read of the decade on that classic Lena Durham ether, I can't give them anymore of my time.

Traditional marriage promotes the traditional family which makes freedom strong and defeats liberal attempts to undermine state rights.

Also the author literally says that defending traditional marriage doesn't discriminate against gays because both sexes are still free to get married. Straight married of course.
 
Ted Cruz just called net neutrality 'Obamacare for the internet' and that's bad news for everyone

What a douche.

Perhaps the angle that net neutrality people should take is that the guy who made the current regulatory classification WAS A BLACK MAN! (The corrupted Michael Powell.)

There is no real justification for the Internet not being covered by Title II, and if it weren't for Verizon all ISPs would have gotten covered under a different section (406 or 704 or whatever it was) that they actually wanted. I imagine this is no different than when they made the Telephone more open. All it results in is more competition between businesses, which is exactly what the right wing is always raving about. You can't say you want a free market with healthy competition and do everything in your power to enable monopolies. It's nonsense. But Democrats are a bunch of spineless idiots and probably will distance themselves from Obama's stance instead of standing by him and doing something that is good for the American people in every way imaginable.

Also; Obamacare for the Internet, ISPs and friends lash out.

I like how the VP from AT&T says "treat Internet access as an information service subject to light-touch regulation. This classification of Internet service has been upheld by the Supreme Court" but fails to mention that the recent attempt to reclassify it was turned down by the Supreme Court because they said it needed to be Title II.
 
Traditional marriage promotes the traditional family which makes freedom strong and defeats liberal attempts to undermine state rights.

Also the author literally says that defending traditional marriage doesn't discriminate against gays because both sexes are still free to get married. Straight married of course.

Glad to hear that they are sticking with the wrong side of history of a completely dead issue.


"Also the author literally says that defending traditional marriage doesn't discriminate against gays because both sexes are still free to get married. Straight married of course."

So perhaps we should ban traditional marriage and only allow gay marriage. It won't discriminate against straights because they can get gay married too.
 
My theory about your age was wildly inaccurate.
You thought I was younger?
can I get a tldr? I used up my National Review read of the decade on that classic Lena Durham ether, I can't give them anymore of my time.
You actually liked the Lena piece?

But Its pretty much "defer to the people". Democracy is good, let the people define marriage.

Bizzarly the opposite of their "why the south muat prevail" article where they argued the moral imperative was on the side of oppressing black people because they weren't civilized.
 
There is no real justification for the Internet not being covered by Title II, and if it weren't for Verizon all ISPs would have gotten covered under a different section (406 or 704 or whatever it was) that they actually wanted. I imagine this is no different than when they made the Telephone more open. All it results in is more competition between businesses, which is exactly what the right wing is always raving about. You can't say you want a free market with healthy competition and do everything in your power to enable monopolies. It's nonsense. But Democrats are a bunch of spineless idiots and probably will distance themselves from Obama's stance instead of standing by him and doing something that is good for the American people in every way imaginable.

Also; Obamacare for the Internet, ISPs and friends lash out.

I like how the VP from AT&T says "treat Internet access as an information service subject to light-touch regulation. This classification of Internet service has been upheld by the Supreme Court" but fails to mention that the recent attempt to reclassify it was turned down by the Supreme Court because they said it needed to be Title II.

It should have been a common carrier. Michael Powell did the industry's bidding by saying no . . . and later got rewarded with a cushy industry job making tons of money. And Obama appointed another industry person to the FCC board, so he really isn't that much better. Him coming out for it now is kinda annoying because he could have come out for it long ago and put someone else at the FCC.
 

Metaphoreus

This is semantics, and nothing more
To those worried about the king case read this link.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/11/s...-obamacare-subsidies-as-textualisms-big-test/

I'm now thinking it is a unanimous ruling on the government's side. It also obliterates megamind's arguments.

Well, I guess we're doing this again.

Gluck's arguments aren't new. In fact, that you appear to be unfamiliar with her arguments demonstrates conclusively that you never did read the D.C. Circuit panel's opinion in Halbig before you decided to criticize it so vociferously. Here's how the panel addressed Gluck's points:

(1) Such Exchange: Under section 1321, "HHS must 'establish' a Section 1311 exchange, which is a state exchange."

Halbig said:
The phrase "such Exchange" has twofold significance. First, the word "such" . . . signifies that the Exchange the Secretary must establish is the "required Exchange" that the state failed to establish. In other words, "such" conveys what a federal Exchange is: the equivalent of the Exchange a state would have established had it elected to do so. . . . If we import [the statutory definition of "Exchange"] into the text of section 1321, the provision directs the Secretary to "establish . . . such American Health Benefit Exchange established under [section 1311 of the ACA] within the State." This suggests . . . that the Secretary[, in establishing an Exchange,] . . . acts under section 1311, even though her authority appears in section 1321. Thus, section 1321 creates equivalence between state and federal Exchanges in two respects: in terms of what they are and the statutory authority under which they are established.

The problem confronting the IRS Rule is that subsidies also turn on a third attribute of Exchanges: who established them. . . . Of the three elements of [section 36B of the IRC]--(1) an Exchange (2) established by the State (3) under section 1311--federal Exchanges satisfy only two: they are Exchanges established under 1311.

(2) "[T]he Act defines "Exchange" . . . three times in the statute as a 'state' exchange.

Halbig said:
The dissent attempts to supply this missing equivalency by pointing to section 1311(d)(1), which provides: "An Exchange shall be a governmental agency or nonprofit entity that is established by a State." . . . According to the dissent, (d)(1) means that an Exchange established under section 1311 is, by definition, established by a state. . . .

The premise that (d)(1) is definitional, however, does not survive examination of (d)(1)'s context and the ACA's structure. The other provisions of section 1311(d) are operational requirements, setting forth what Exchanges must (or, in some cases, may) do. . . . Read in keeping with that theme, (d)(1) would simply require that an Exchange operate as either a governmental agency or nonprofit entity. But the dissent would have us construe (d)(1) differently. In its view, (d)(1) plays a definitional role unique among section 1311(d)'s otherwise operational provisions, creating a legal fiction that any Exchange is, by definition, established by a state, even when, as a matter of fact, it is not. That reading, however, would render (d)(1) the odd man out twice over: both within section 1311(d) and among the ACA's other definitional provisions, which, unlike (d)(1), employ the (unmistakably definitional) formula of "The term 'X' means . . . ." . . .

The dissent's reading would also require us to overlook the fact that section 1311(d) would be a strange place for Congress to have buried such a legal fiction. Section 1311, after all, concerns Exchanges that are established by states in fact; the legal fiction the dissent urges would matter only to Exchanges established by the federal government.

(3) Section 36B(f)(3) "is rendered meaningless if the federal exchanges have no subsidies."

Halbig said:
The government first argues that we must uphold the IRS Rule to avoid rendering language in 26 U.S.C. s. 36B(f) superfluous. . . . As relevant here, section 36B(f) also requires "each Exchange"--i.e., both state and federal Exchanges--to report certain information to the government. . . . The government contends that these reporting requirements assume that credits are available on federal Exchanges, and it argues that the requirements would be superfluous, even nonsensical, as applied to federal Exchanges if we were to reject that assumption.

Not so. . . . [H]olding that credits are unavailable on federal Exchanges would not convert the specific reporting requirements concerning credits into an "'empty gesture.'" . . . Those requirements would still allow the reconciling of credits on state Exchanges; as applied to federal Exchanges, they would simply be over-inclusive. Over-inclusiveness, however, remains a problem even if we were to agree that section 36B allows credits on federal Exchanges. Section 36B(f)(3), after all, mandates reporting "with respect to any health plan provided through the Exchange," . . . even though only plans purchased by taxpayers with incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line may be subsidized. . . . A weakness common to both views of the availability of credits hardly serves as a basis for choosing between them.

FN5. Appellants also suggest that the information collected from federal Exchanges could be useful for the "Study on Affordable Coverage" mandated by the ACA in that same section.

(4) Qualified Individuals: "[O]nly 'qualified individuals' can purchase on an Exchange[,] but . . . a qualified individual [is] one who 'resides in the State that established the Exchange.' [Accepting the challengers' argument] would mean that federal exchanges have no customers."

Halbig said:
If this provision is given its plain meaning, then the 36 states with federal Exchanges . . . have no qualified individuals. That outcome is absurd, the government argues, because in its view section 1312 restricts access to Exchanges to qualified individuals alone. . . . The absence of qualified individuals would mean that federal Exchanges have no customers and therefore no purpose. . . .

The government, however, tilts at windmills. It assumes that when section 1312(a) states that "[a] qualified individual may enroll in any qualified health plan available to such individual and for which such individual is eligible," . . . it means that only a qualified individual may enroll in such a plan. The obvious flaw in this interpretation is that the word "only" does not appear in the provision. We have repeated emphasized that it is "not our role" to "engage in a statutory rewrite" by "insert[ing] the word 'only' here and there." . . . On this reading, giving the phrase "established by the State" [sic] its plain meaning creates no difficulty, let alone absurdity. Federal Exchanges might not have qualified individuals, but they would still have customers--namely, individuals who are not "qualified individuals."

Several other provisions in section 1312 imply that non only "qualified individuals" may participate in an Exchange.

(5) Major Questions Rule: This rule "assumes that Congress is not subtle when it makes a major statutory move."

Halbig said:
FN4. The government makes its own elephants-in-mouseholes argument, asserting that the formula for calculating tax credits (located in section 36B(b)) is an odd place to insert a condition that the states must establish their own Exchanges if they wish to secure tax credits for their citizens. The more natural location, the government suggests, would have been section 36B(a), which authorizes the credit in the first place. . . . But even under the government's reading of section 36B(b), the statutory formula houses an elephant: namely, the rule that subsidies are only available for plans purchased through Exchanges. Given that this other crucial limitation on the availability of subsidies is found only in section 36B's formula, the government's contention that the formula is a mere mousehole is unpersuasive.

Equally unpersuasive is the dissent's suggestion that section 36B cannot mean what it plainly says because Congress did not use an "if/then" formula to signify that credits are available only on state-established Exchanges. The dissent cites no authority for requiring such magic words, and we perceive none. . . . It is simply not the case that Congress expresses conditions only through such language.

(6) Carrots and Sticks: "[T]he challengers have to look outside the text of the statute to even try to construct" the narrative that restricting credits to state-established exchanges was intended to incentivize states to establish their own exchange.

Halbig said:
FN11. Appellants . . . contend that [the economic theory behind the ACA] must be understood through the lens of political reality. . . . Congress's solution [to the question of how to induce states to establish exchanges] was a package of "carrots" and "sticks" for states. . . . The sticks included . . . . the provision at issue here: making premium tax credits available only for individual coverage purchased through state-established Exchanges. . . .

[A]ppellants fail to marshal persuasive evidence . . . in support of their theory. . . . [T]he most that can be said of appellants' theory is that it is plausible. But we need not endorse appellants' historical account to agree with their construction of section 36B. "Where the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, we need neither accept nor reject a particular 'plausible' explanation for why Congress would have written a statute [as it did]."

BONUS ROUND: Exclusio Unius: "Medicaid shows that Congress knows how to be explicit if it wishes to use a federalism 'stick.' The lack of an analogous provision for the exchanges leads to precisely the opposite of the challengers' reading under textual analysis."

It looks like the Halbig panel failed to address this argument. I mention it to correct a misstatement I made the last time we were discussing this issue. The threat to cut off all Medicaid funding is not clear from the ACA itself. In fact, the threat is not expressly stated in any part of the U.S. Code. The authority stemmed from 42 U.S.C. 1396C, which hasn't been amended since 1965. Instead, the threat first appeared in a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services to Governor Brewer of Arizona. In oral arguments during NFIB, Justice Breyer suggested that the provision needn't be read in the way that the NFIB challengers read it, and offered the Solicitor General ample opportunity to walk back HHS' threat. Verrilli declined to do so.

This fact cuts both ways. It's possible that no member of Congress realized that the potential for this threat existed when voting on the ACA. This means that it's harder to make a case that Congress intentionally threatened to destroy Medicaid, as I attempted to do earlier this year. On the other hand, the U.S. Code clearly gives the Secretary of HHS a choice in how to handle noncompliance with federal Medicaid requirements. Given that choice, the Obama administration decided to threaten to destroy Medicaid in any state that failed to expand it. So, it remains impossible to say that no one who supported the law would have given states the authority to undermine it, unless you deny that Sebelius supported the law.
 
You thought I was younger?

You actually liked the Lena piece?

But Its pretty much "defer to the people". Democracy is good, let the people define marriage.

Bizzarly the opposite of their "why the south muat prevail" article where they argued the moral imperative was on the side of oppressing black people because they weren't civilized.

Ah, the democracy>civil rights argument. Classic National Review.

I thought the Lena piece was pure, unadulterated childish ether, personally. I think she's a piece of shit though so it was right up my alley. I can advocate for gender equality while noting she's a classist, semi racist fraud.
 
Ah, the democracy>civil rights argument. Classic National Review.

I thought the Lena piece was pure, unadulterated childish ether, personally. I think she's a piece of shit though so it was right up my alley. I can advocate for gender equality while noting she's a classist, semi racist fraud.

actually like I said before they're flip flopping, they were against democracy when it came to the civil rights movement. They actively sought to suppress it until blacks were 'civilized'


I have no problem critiquing her but coming from the author i treated it as sexist trash

edit: constitutional law is horrible see:
The phrase "such Exchange" has twofold significance. First, the word "such" . . . signifies that the Exchange the Secretary must establish is the "required Exchange" that the state failed to establish. In other words, "such" conveys what a federal Exchange is: the equivalent of the Exchange a state would have established had it elected to do so. . . . If we import [the statutory definition of "Exchange"] into the text of section 1321, the provision directs the Secretary to "establish . . . such American Health Benefit Exchange established under [section 1311 of the ACA] within the State." This suggests . . . that the Secretary[, in establishing an Exchange,] . . . acts under section 1311, even though her authority appears in section 1321. Thus, section 1321 creates equivalence between state and federal Exchanges in two respects: in terms of what they are and the statutory authority under which they are established.

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"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
 
It should have been a common carrier. Michael Powell did the industry's bidding by saying no . . . and later got rewarded with a cushy industry job making tons of money. And Obama appointed another industry person to the FCC board, so he really isn't that much better. Him coming out for it now is kinda annoying because he could have come out for it long ago and put someone else at the FCC.

I'm really hoping they follow through with it. ISPs are almost literally a monopoly at this point. They do everything they can to fight legitimate competition all while quality of service has stagnated, rates have continually increased, and customer satisfaction has continued to fall. Comcast is one of the most hated--and largest--corporations in the country, but they will continue to be successful because the people in their service area have literally no other viable option. Common Carrier status would allow start-ups to try and improve on the services that companies like Comcast offer, and increase competition across the board. It is a win-win for consumers, and that's why ISPs and assholes like Ted Cruz disapprove of it.
 

He would lose spectacularly. Republicans will not win 2016. The one take away from these mid-terms was that people are left-leaning when it comes to social programs--they want a higher minimum wage, legalized marijuana, and access to abortions. Even though people voted for Republicans by and large, even some of those voters wanted these things, so when you have their insanely regressive social views on display Republicans will look absurdly bad--Scott Walker has personally taken a stance against those 3 issues alone.
 

Averon

Member
What does Scott Walker has that makes him a viable candidate? Other than being a Koch brothers lackey and maybe flipping Wisconsin red?

He looks more like a running mate pick than a top ticket one.
 
Scott Walker is the running mate of someone like a Marco Rubio. He's not a candidate on his own.

God, if only Democrats could be lucky enough to run against a Rubio\Walker ticket. It would be hilarious. I agree Walker is not a candidate for a multitude of reasons, the prime one being he lacks charisma. Mitt Romney wasn't an ideal candidate, but he definitely was a nice friendly face, Walker just doesn't have that same spark.
 
What does Scott Walker has that makes him a viable candidate? Other than being a Koch brothers lackey and maybe flipping Wisconsin red?

He looks more like a running mate pick than a top ticket one.

He is a "safe" pick. He can be relied on when Rand Paul crashes his clown car.
 
What does Scott Walker has that makes him a viable candidate? Other than being a Koch brothers lackey and maybe flipping Wisconsin red?

He looks more like a running mate pick than a top ticket one.

"reform" (destroying progressive WI), anti-union, succeeding in a blue state.
 
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