Friday Open Thread
The suddenly populist Charlie Copeland pretends he is against corporate welfare now.
First Read: “It’s pretty obvious to say that Rick Perry has to feel good after last night’s GOP presidential debate here. And it’s obvious that Mitt Romney emerged unscathed. But our biggest takeaway from the debate: It wasn’t a good night for the entire Republican Party, especially since it was such an opportunity for the party as this debate took place in the midst of what happens to be President Obama’s worst week in the White House. Team Obama could not have asked for a better visual than every single GOP candidate raising their hand saying they’d refuse to support a debt deal that had a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. What’s more, the highlights of the debate were about them attacking each other than criticizing the president. We have now officially moved from the stage of the GOP presidential cycle where they’re attacking Obama, to the stage where they’re attacking each other. And this is one of the reasons why defeating a sitting president — who isn’t facing a primary challenge — isn’t easy, even in an economy like this one.”
And in case there was any doubt: “A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans.”
Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that “people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default,” Mukherji said.
“That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable,” he added. “This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns.”
Indeed. All the GOP candidates did so again last night.
I love the new twist on this recurring story: Another homophobe Republican busted with a naked guy. You know the drill.
The Repub initially found the rentboy on craigslist, emailed a few times, and then met him at a motel. The Repub got aggressive and grabby, and the rentboy got uncomfortable and called his sister for help.
What gets me about the story is this: When the sister arrived, the Repub realized the position he was in, and offered them something to keep quiet. What he gave them was $100 cash, his iPad, and his Blackberry.
That’s right – To keep the witnesses quiet, he gave them the evidence. The emails were quickly found and published.
Some people are too dumb to remember to breathe.
Later the Repub’s wife called the sister and offered $10,000 hush money. Apparently that didn’t work either.
…. and this Republican was … of course… anti-gay. Normally I could give two shits about what a politician does in his or her personal sex life. But when you spend your career not only minding the sex lives of others, and limiting the civil liberties of those who just happen to be gay, saying horrible bigoted slanders about homosexuals, then I hope this Republican burns. I hope the embarrassment is searing. I hope he resigns in shame and I hope his career is destroyed.
Excellent news: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals declares the insurance mandate in the health care reform law unconstitutional.
BTW, I am not against an insurance mandate. I am against an insurance mandate that does not have a non-profit public option.
“I hope he resigns in shame and I hope his career is destroyed.”
I don’t. If you think of him not as a hypocritical Republican but a closeted gay man who, by adopting the guise of a conservative politician (there really isn’t any other kind in Indiana; see Bayh, Evan), thought he had found the perfect hiding place.
But he was elected back in 2000. As his state and party got more and more deranged/conservative, he realized he couldn’t get away with just expressing distaste for homosexuality — he had to attack it.
He clearly was conflicted — why would he tell the young man he was a state lawmaker? If you read the story, it’s pretty clear his wife was aware of his orientation.
Sorry, but I think it’s the tragic story of a man raised in a time and place that forced him into the closet, and the self-destructive way he got out.
“Excellent news: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals declares the insurance mandate in the health care reform law unconstitutional.”
Not really. Some say yes, some say no, and nothing they say will ultimately matter once the Supreme Court rules.
But let’s pretend it means something. Why is it good news?
Because Anonone hates Obama with the passion of a thousand suns and, like a teabagger, thinks any bad news for Obama is great news for America.
Geezer is right. The Supreme Court will decide since the lower courts are all divided. Back in June or earlier, another circuit court held the law constitutional.
Geezer, I just have no sympathy for him. You do. Good for you.
The Supreme Court takes the opinions of Appeals Courts as an important consideration into their own opinions, so it is better to go to the SCOTUS with an argument that won in an Appeals court than not.
As for the good news part, I agree with the decision because I am opposed to the government forcing people to pay their hard-earned money to private companies without having a public non-profit option.
Ideally, I hope that when the private insurance mandate is ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the SCOTUS that it will force some kind of public option or re-open the discussion of universal health care.
The individual mandate is a horrible dodge existing only to avoid taking on the real issue of public health care. Not to mention, it funnels unthinkable amounts of our money to our corporate political opponents, who will use that money to screw us in just about every conceivable way, as we were discussing in another thread.
I hope the individual mandate (and only the individual mandate) is struck down, so that we can return to figuring out how to bring public health care to America, in an American way. For me it has nothing to do with hating Obama, and everything to do with policy.
At the time of the HCR debate the apologists said “We’ll fix it later.” Well, it looks like later is here, jogged along by the courts. Don’t shrink from fixing it, now that “later” has arrived.
But what happens when two Appeals Courts have rendered divergent opinions?
On policy, I agree with you.
On politics and what is going to happen, I don’t. If the law is struck down, the conservative argument wins for probably the next generation. There will be no push for universal healthcare for the remainder of our lives.
Hence, I don’t want it struck down. I want to take the baby step and then take another baby step.
I understand your feelings, DD. I shared them until this became so common a story that it became obvious that many, many of these homophobes aren’t really homophobes — they’re people who have been told thousands of times since they were kids, by their parents and their preachers, that homosexuals were some sort of spawn of the devil. So when they felt those feelings, they couldn’t dare tell anyone. Is it any wonder some of them are self-loathing?
When I thought it was a handful of hypocrites, I could point and laugh. Now I’m starting to understand how widespread this tragedy must be.
“Ideally, I hope that when the private insurance mandate is ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the SCOTUS that it will force some kind of public option or re-open the discussion of universal health care.”
That’s nice. Ideally, I hope to someday see a unicorn. I suppose you do, too, because I agree with you — but only in an ideal way.
In the real world, a revisit of HCR is more likely to bring us the Paul Ryan proposal than single-payer.
Exactly Geezer. Or nothing at all.
Del Dem, notice that I did not say anything about Obama in my comment at all. Why?
Because I am writing about a HCR law that have disagreed with from the day that the public option was dropped. I believe that mandate without a public option is wrong. People should not be forced by the government to pay to support private company profits without a public option. It has nothing to do with it being “bad for Obama.”
But if you want to dismiss everything I say because I think Obama is a corporate sell-out, fine. But then one can dismiss anything you say because, apparently, you worship Obama with the “passion of a thousand suns” and think that anything that Obama does is good for America, regardless.
The interesting situation is if the individual mandate is struck down but the rest of the law remains intact. There was some mention a while back that the legislation failed to make its features “severable” so that could happen. If so that was a remarkable oversight and one would have to wonder if it was intentional.
“In the real world, a revisit of HCR is more likely to bring us the Paul Ryan proposal than single-payer.”
You are probably right. We will have to hit bottom before we can begin to get on the right path.
Several years ago there was a discussion of rolling back the age of medicare eligibility to 55 or earlier. Now Obama is proposing moving up the age of medicare eligibility to past 65.
This is a small fact that the “he’ll fix it later” crowd of Obama worshipers chooses to ignore.
We’ll see, geezer. Not that voting seems to matter much anymore, but I’d suggest that the demographics of an aging population portend a large voting block that is not going to be happy when they can’t get affordable health care.
Luv how whispers solidifies opinions with some people.
This is all just one sick power play joke. Life and death as political pawns and ways to aquire a larger yacht. It’s in the conservative wheelhouse.
Anyway, the real losers are the insurance cos. But no worries, the cons that matter, SCOTUS, will make it right
Obama Hater, with all the vim and vigor of the Obama Worshipers.
Fucking 8th grade. It’s all a parody of a parody about now.
Nice. How did I miss this?
Do you really think that this SCOTUS will rule against private insurance companies? They are corporations and this group of Supremes loves corporations by a vote of 5-4. The real shocker will be when both of Obama’s appointees vote against mandatory private insurance on the minority side of the opinion. I’m with anoneone on this one. The public option should never have been taken off the table and doing so made the rest of this a farce.
Washington Post reports that Mitt Romney is worth $264 million? A plutocrat who could buy the election. Re: health care, I understood it to mean “the individual mandate” is not consitutional? Doesnt matter anyway, Delaware legislators better get off the dime and hold hearings on the benefits of a Delaware Single Payer program. We can get a waiver just like Vermont.