Why the GOP May Lose Everything

All of these Republicans need to be forced into retirement.

I try to not get overly optimistic, but the 2020 elections have the possibility of  dealing the Republican Party and Donald Trump a horrific defeat and loss of control of both houses of Congress and the White House.  If it comes to pass, it will be most deserved and a repudiation of an agenda that has benefited the very wealthy and in the final analysis little or nothing to the vast majority of Americans. Indeed, the entire GOP game plan has been to use racism and religious extremism to dupe working class and middle class Americans to vote against their own best interests. The gambit worked in 2016, but signs indicate that 2020 may prove to be a different ball game, especially with the coronavirus pandemics underscoring the need for the very programs and policies the GOP wants to destroy. A column in the Washington Post looks at the rapidly changing outlook for the GOP come December.  If the economy continues to suffer and there is a second wave of the virus, things could get even worse for Republicans - and deservedly so.  Here are excerpts:

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) says that when he first announced he would run for the U.S. Senate, he “didn’t know what Montana and the country was going to look like in the short period thereafter.” With the covid-19 crisis, all his time has been taken up by being a governor, not a candidate. So far, that has only helped him in his campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Steve Daines.

In Maine, House Speaker Sara Gideon, a Democrat seeking to end the long career of Republican Sen. Susan Collins, says the pandemic has “laid bare the inequities that already existed” and underscored the need for a “vision of what it means to work together and for each other instead of trying to sow divisiveness.” This brings home Gideon’s case against Collins’s willingness to ally with President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), two of the most divisive figures in American politics.

Colorado’s former governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat with a good chance of ousting incumbent Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, expresses a sense of gravity about this campaign that he never felt in his races for mayor of Denver or governor.

And Democrat Cal Cunningham, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who is facing incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), says that many North Carolinians today feel “an urgency that did not exist prior to March of this year” about “health coverage . . . about jobs, the economy.”

Issues that were once “percolating for many” are now “personal for everyone.”

If Bullock, Gideon, Hickenlooper and Cunningham all win, Democrats will likely take over the U.S. Senate and end McConnell’s days as majority leader.

And they are not the only challengers with a decent shot at Republican seats. In Arizona, Democrat Mark Kelly has been running ahead of Republican Sen. Martha McSally, and Republicans face vulnerabilities in Iowa, Georgia, possibly Kansas and perhaps even in South Carolina. McConnell, though favored, faces a spirited opponent in Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot. Only one Democratic incumbent, Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama, is an underdog. Having disastrously bungled the pandemic, Trump is not only falling well behind former vice president Joe Biden in the polls; he could also be creating a tidal wave that would give Democrats unified control of the federal government’s elected branches.

Hickenlooper and Gideon are running in states Trump lost in 2016, and the president’s increasing vulnerability in Arizona and North Carolina could open the way for Kelly and Cunningham.

My conversations with four of the top Senate challengers suggested that the coronavirus crisis has reinforced core arguments that helped the Democrats win the House in 2018, particularly around access to health care, while also increasing the saliency of inequality — in both economic and health outcomes — as a mainstream concern.

At the same time, Trump’s brutal belligerence has turned Democratic candidates into missionaries of concord. This allows them to be implicitly critical of the president and reach out to his one-time supporters at the same time.

If the GOP does lose everything, it will be because the Trumpian circus-plus-horror-show is entirely off-key for an electorate that has so much to be serious about.

Like Paul Ryan, Cuccinelli Claims Alliegance to Catholic Teaching But Embraces Ayn Rand Instead

As a former Roman Catholic who left Catholicism is utter disgust after the sex abuse scandal first exploded in Boston in 2002, I continue to be both amazed and disgusted by Republican politicians who wrap themselves in religiosity, claim to supportive of the Catholic social gospel, yet then embrace a cold, ruthless and heartless capitalism and demonstrate that they view much of humanity as disposable human garbage.   Paul Ryan, who wanted to gut social programs and destroy the social safety net is but one example.  Indeed, Ryan was even condemned by the generally bankrupt Catholic Church hierarchy which found Ryan's ruthless slashing of the social safety net to be utterly inconsistent with Catholic social teachings.  Here in Virginia, we have another similar hypocrite who embraces his Catholicism for show and political display, but who champions policies diametrically opposed to the true Catholic social gospel.  Here are highlights from a piece in National Review:

What book would he write about if he had to write a college-admissions essay?  .   .   .  .  Ultimately, he picks Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Rand, Cuccinelli says, “captured an awful lot of the battle for our government that’s going on right now” and saw “the natural course of bigger government, [the problem of] relying on it for everything, and the control it takes over everything as it goes down that path.” Cuccinelli observes that “we’re having a debate about that right now in this country, about whether that’s the right way to go or not.”

Ultimately, Cuccinelli is opposed to freedom, or at least freedom for any one other than Christofascists such as those who are epitomized by the hate merchants at The Family Foundation and angry white Tea Party extremists.  As for the social gospel, he's against expanded health care, he supports strict voter ID laws to disenfranchise minorities, and he wants women basically kept   barefoot and pregnant in the home, and, of course, he wants gays criminalized and subjected to felony charges under Virginia's unconstitutional sodomy statute.  

Romney and GOP Still Don't Get It: Blame Lost on "Obamacare Attractiveness" To The "Lower Incomes"

As this blog has noted numerous times, the United States is the ONLY advanced developed nation that does not have a plan for national health insurance of some kind for all of its citizens.  This despite the fact that supposedly the most religious of this same grouping of citizens.  Something that one would think would translate into a belief that the sick and uninsured should have health care coverage - at least if self-proclaimed Christians in the GOP base truly believed in and valued the Gospel message of Christ.  Of course, they don't and stand as a remarkable example of the modern day Pharisees that seem everywhere within conservative Christianity.  And this hypocrisy and cluelessness extends to the party of the Christofascists and modern day Pharisees, the Republican Party.  In a recent interview Mitt Romney revealed that he still doesn't grasp why he and the GOP lost last November.  They view countless Americans as disposable trash and still seek to gut Medicare and other programs that benefit the less fortunate and, I would argue are consistent with the Gospel that these falsely pious hypocrites pretend to worship.  A piece in The New Civil Rights Movement looks at Romney and the sickness within the GOP:

Mitt Romney appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and said he lost the 2012 campaign for the presidency because of “the Obamacare attractiveness” to “lower incomes.”  “We did very well with the majority population, but not with minority populations, and that was a failing, that was a real mistake,” Romney told Fox News host Chris Wallace.

“I think the Obamacare attractiveness and feature was something we underestimated, particularly among lower incomes. And, uh, just didn’t do as good a job in connecting with that audience as we should have.”

Aan Millhiser at Think Progress adds:

During the course of the interview, Romney agreed with Wallace that his “47 percent” comment — his claim that 47 percent of the country will vote for Obama because they are “dependent upon government” and “believe that they are victims” — hurt his campaign by leaving the impression that he did not like many voters. Nevertheless, this explanation of his loss is reminiscent of the explanation he gave his donors for his defeat shortly after the election — Obama won because of “the gifts” he gave to African-Americans, Latinos and young voters.

Note that Romney doesn’t use the word “people” in his comments. They are not even “voters,” but, “populations.”  Romney had no moral right to be president of the American people because he never saw them as people.

It goes without saying that since Romney has never had to worry about money or access to health care for his family, he doesn't understand why Obamacare is such a pressing issue for many of us.  As for folks like Paul Ryan, they simply don't give a damn about the less fortunate no matter how hard he tries to wrap himself in his Catholicism.

Michael Bloomberg Endorses Obama

Four years ago Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, did not endorse either of the presidential candidates.  Many expected that Bloomberg would act similarly in 2012.  That expectation was shot down today when Bloomberg, in a well reasoned statement, endorsed Barack Obama on his political website.   What tipped the scales in Bloombergs mind?  The fact that one of the presidential candidates, Barack Obama, embraces science and the fact that the earth's climate is changing and the other, Mitt Romney, does not.  Adding to the motivation to endorse Obama Bloomberg also notes Romney's embrace of the frightening agenda of the Christofascists and others of the far right.  Here are excerpts from Bloomberg's endorsement of Obama:

The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast – in lost lives, lost homes and lost business – brought the stakes of Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief.

Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be – given this week's devastation – should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

Here in New York, our comprehensive sustainability plan – PlaNYC – has helped allow us to cut our carbon footprint by 16 percent in just five years, which is the equivalent of eliminating the carbon footprint of a city twice the size of Seattle. Through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group – a partnership among many of the world’s largest cities – local governments are taking action where national governments are not.

But we can't do it alone. We need leadership from the White House – and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy), which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year. 

Mitt Romney, too, has a history of tackling climate change.  .  .  .  .  But since then, he has reversed course, abandoning the very cap-and-trade program he once supported. This issue is too important. We need determined leadership at the national level to move the nation and the world forward.

In the past he has also taken sensible positions on immigration, illegal guns, abortion rights and health care. But he has reversed course on all of them, and is even running against the health-care model he signed into law in Massachusetts.  

His [Obama's] health-care law – for all its flaws - will provide insurance coverage to people who need it most and save lives..

When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters, and the values that are required to guide us there. The two parties’ nominees for president offer different visions of where they want to lead America. 

One believes a woman’s right to choose should be protected for future generations; one does not. That difference, given the likelihood of Supreme Court vacancies, weighs heavily on my decision.

One recognizes marriage equality as consistent with America’s march of freedom; one does not. I want our president to be on the right side of history.

One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.

Presidnts Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan both found success while their parties were out of power in Congress – and President Obama can, too. If he listens to people on both sides of the aisle, and builds the trust of moderates, he can fulfill the hope he inspired four years ago and lead our country toward a better future for my children and yours. And that's why I will be voting for him.  

I agree with Michael Bloomberg.  I'd go even further and state that one candidate, Barack Obama, is on the right side of history and morality and the other, Mitt Romney is not.  Romney could be the poster boy for why one should walk away from organized religion, the Mormon Church in particular.

The Moral Case for Voting for Obama

The Christianists and professional Christian set by vast majorities support the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket.  These people who proudly proclaim such support typically also wrap themselves in misplaced religious piety.  More often than not, they seem most motivated by hate and bigotry against others forgetting that NONE of us had the luxury of deciding whether we were born black, white or of some other ethnic background; whether we we born male or female; whether we were born gay or straight; whether we were born into a family of wealth and privilege like Messrs. Romney and Ryan; or whether we born into a family that was Christian. Muslim or something else.  Not a one of us had any control over the hand we were dealt in these regards.   Yet these proud Republicans - most of whom are white, conservative Christians and straight - have a sense of extreme superiority and self-righteousness over others not born into the same circumstances that they themselves enjoyed.  Worse yet, they hold hate and contempt for those not born white, Christian and straight.  But the case in support of labeling them morally bankrupt is even worse.  Andrew Sullivan makes the case why one is truly moral - and I make the case that the Christianists/tea Party base of the GOP is inherently immoral - voting for Barack Obama is the only moral choice.  Here are excerpts:

[T]there is another dimension to politics and it's about morality. Some issues are not subject to prudential or utilitarian reasoning, but are fundamental a priori moral questions. Let me cite three areas where I think the difference between Obama and Romney is a deep and moral one and requires the exercize of conscience as well as judgment.

The first is universal access to healthcare. I've long been a fan of the great parts of America's private healthcare system: its treatment of patients as customers they want to keep, as opposed to human beings they are simply mandated to treat; the innovation of the pharmaceutical companies in a free market; private hospitals and doctors. But the fact that tens of millions of human beings cannot afford access to this often excellent private healthcare, even in a basic form, remains, to my mind, a scandal. That there are two nations in this country - one with the security of healthcare and one with no security at all - remains, to my mind, a moral disgrace.

This election is really asking you: do you believe everyone should be able to have access to private health insurance or not?  .  .  .  . To run a campaign in favor of removing that kind of security for tens of millions of Americans and replacing it with nothing remotely comparable is simply, deeply, morally wrong. 

Torture is also a non-negotiable issue for me. It is simply unacceptable. It is the negation of the West's entire founding principles. Any candidate of any party who supports it rules himself out for me on that ground alone. Romney will bring it back. He will make America a torturing nation again. He would employ the former war criminals of the dark years of Bush-Cheney and legitimize them still further.

Finally, I cannot reconcile a pre-emptive war against a country that only has the technical ability to make a nuclear bomb, but has not weaponized it or threatened its use, with any reading of just war theory. 

I have no illusions about the evil in the Tehran regime.  .  .  .  .  But when the Supreme Leader of that theocracy publicly declares as religious doctrine that using a nuclear bomb is a sin, and when the opposition in Iran favors the nuclear program as a matter of national pride, and when Iran's nuclear capability would still be no match for Israel's massive and fully actionable nuclear apparatus, then pre-emptive war is morally unconscionable. To use an expression like "mowing the lawn" to decribe such acts of war that would kill countless people makes me sick to my stomach. 

Romney favors such a pre-emptive war based merely on Iran's capability. Obama favors it based on the actual decision to construct a nuclear weapon. Both, I believe, are morally troublesme, from a just war perspective. But Romney's is far worse. I'm no pacifist. But I also deeply oppose war except in self-defense with as few civilian casualties as is possible. 

Andrew also correctly looks at the support for equal civil liberties and employment protections for LGBT Americans which in my mind is also a moral issue, but it is health care, torture and unnecessary war that he finds determinative:

I'm not citing civil rights issues, but they of course factor in. The GOP's institutional bigotry toward gay people and our lives and families and its stated intent to keep a whole class of us disenfranchized from the basic right to marry the person you love appalls me.

On the universality of access to healthcare, on torture, and on pre-emptive war, my conscience therefore requires me to withhold support for the Republican candidate. I disagree with him on many prudential policy grounds - but none reach the level of moral seriousness of the above.

Romney's Sham Plan for Prosperity

Let's be honest.  Over the last 18+ months, Mitt Romney has shown himself to be a constant flip flopper - or shape shifter as some have begun to describe him.   And his plan for the future of the country? Vague statements that seem to support all kinds of spending yet a tax plan that would have to create a new form of math to make the numbers remotely balance.  All of this will supposedly lead the nation to renewed "prosperity."  Perhaps for some, but not for most of us.  Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has a column in today's New York Times that looks at the sham Romeny/Ryan economic plan.  Here are excerpts:

Mitt Romney has been barnstorming the country, telling voters that he has a five-point plan to restore prosperity. And some voters, alas, seem to believe what he’s saying. So President Obama has now responded with his own plan, a little blue booklet containing 27 policy proposals. How do these two plans stack up?

Well, as I’ve said before, Mr. Romney’s “plan” is a sham. It’s a list of things he claims will happen, with no description of the policies he would follow to make those things happen. “We will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget,” he declares, but he refuses to specify which tax loopholes he would close to offset his $5 trillion in tax cuts

Mr. Romney is faking it. His real plan seems to be to foster economic recovery through magic, inspiring business confidence through his personal awesomeness. But what about the man he wants to kick out of the White House? 

Well, Mr. Obama’s booklet comes a lot closer to being an actual plan. Where Mr. Romney says he’ll achieve energy independence, never mind how, Mr. Obama calls for concrete steps like raising fuel efficiency standards. Mr. Romney says, “We will give our fellow citizens the skills they need,” but says nothing about how he’ll make that happen, pivoting instead to a veiled endorsement of school vouchers; Mr. Obama calls for specific things like a program to recruit math and science teachers and partnerships between businesses and community colleges. 

It’s disappointing, to be sure. But a slow job is better than a snow job. Mr. Obama may not be as bold as we’d like, but he isn’t actively misleading voters the way Mr. Romney is. Furthermore, if we ask what Mr. Romney would probably do in practice, including sharp cuts in programs that aid the less well-off and the imposition of hard-money orthodoxy on the Federal Reserve, it looks like a program that might well derail the recovery and send us back into recession. 

And you should never forget the broader policy context. Mr. Obama may not have an exciting economic plan, but, if he is re-elected, he will get to implement a health reform that is the biggest improvement in America’s safety net since Medicare. Mr. Romney doesn’t have an economic plan at all, but he is determined not just to repeal Obamacare but to impose savage cuts in Medicaid. So never mind all those bullet points. Think instead about the 45 million Americans who either will or won’t receive essential health care, depending on who wins on Nov. 6.

The question remains ultimately whether or not a majority of voters are uninformed enough - or stupid enough - to believe Romney's deliberate lies.

The Truth About Mitt Romney's Health Care "Plan"

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I had conversations today with those who refuse to accept the fact that Mitt Romney's health care plan will cause much harm to millions of Americans - yes, most of these conversations were with republicans.  These conversation caused me to take another look at just how toxic the Romney plan would be for so many Americans in order that I could "re-educate" these apparent Fox News viewers.  In this process, perhaps the most effective explanation of the difference between "Obamacare," Romneycare as enacted in Massachusetts id applied nationwide, and Romney's current health care "plan" can be found at Think Progress which includes the chart above.  Take a good look and make sure your non-engaged, Fox News watching friends look at this chart and stop drinking the Romney/Ryan Kool-Aid.  Here are highlights from the Think Progress article:

A new study from Families USA compares both Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health reform law and proposed health care plans as a presidential candidate with President Obama’s health care reform. The report finds that on both a national and state-by-state level, Romney’s proposed reforms would lead to a substanitally higher uninsurance rate and considerably less financial support for American families trying to access health coverage than Obamacare would. A key element of the study notes that Romney’s plan uses tax deductions (relief on the amount of taxable income workers have to claim) as opposed to Obamacare’s tax credits (an actual reduction in the total taxes workers pay) as its method of premium support, thus reaching fewer Americans and providing them with less subsidies. 

Romney’s proposals would provide working families little more than half the subsidies that Obamacare does, and by 2022 Romney’s plan would lead to a net 50 million more uninsured Americans than Obamacare would.

Don't be afraid to challenge the ignorance of your Romney loving friends.  Whether they like it or not, they need to get their heads out of their asses and stop drinking the GOP/Christianist/Tea Party Kool-Aid.

Reactions to the Presidential Debate

I hate to say it, but in my opinion Obama blew it tonight.  Romney lied through his teeth repeatedly - e.g., his claim that he would not seek a huge tax cut for the wealthy, that he'd lower the number of those without health care and the utterly farcical claim that small businesses can effectively negotiate with big insurance companies for heath care plans - and Obama failed to effectively call him out.  The end result was that Romney looked commanding and those not aware of his total dishonesty likely had their opinion of the man enhanced.  As for the moderator, he completely lost control of the situation.  Obama had better regain his game quickly and Romney's shocking lies of the evening need to be exposed.  In sum, I am NOT a happy camper.

P.S. I cannot help but note that Romney, who claims to be the protector of traditional values and religious values, proved to be the biggest liar of the evening.  Of course, that's really no surprise given that the "godly Christian" crowd and professional Christians are the worse lairs one will likely ever encounter.

Romney Has His Own "Redistribution" Plan

With his campaign in such a bad mess that some are predicting a GOP civil war, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, a/k/a Mini Mitt, are grasping for anything that might breath life into the hopefully moribund campaign.   They think they found a message: the Obama is a "redistributionist" who supports European socialism on statements he made 14 years ago.  Yes, it's lame and has nothing to do with Obama's recent statements, but when one is out of touch, has alienated nearly half the population by calling them lazy moochers, one has to grab whatever twig one finds in the river as it flows towards the top of the approaching waterfall.  The irony, however, as the Washington Post points out is that Romney has his own redistribution plan: progressive taxes, maintaining social security, some form of Medicare, etc.   Of course, he has another goal too: make the poor and the middle class pay more so that he can allow the wealthy to have more - including the obscenely wealthy.  Here are some editorial highlights:

[T]he Romney campaign is accusing President Obama of being a — gasp! — redistributionist. In a rather pale replay of 2008’s Joe the Plumber spread-the-wealth debate, the GOP dredged up a 14-year-old video.

Mitt Romney and his campaign seized on the clip as ominous evidence of Mr. Obama’s European socialist tendencies. “I know there are some who believe that, if you simply take from some and give to others, then we’ll all be better off. It’s known as redistribution. It’s never been a characteristic of America,” Mr. Romney said.

The campaign apparently thinks that voters will find “redistribution” a scary word. But does Mr. Romney really disagree with the belief that part of government’s role is, in Mr. Obama’s words, to help “make sure that everybody’s got a shot”? To tax is to redistribute. To govern is to redistribute. Benefits from government spending flow in different amounts to different individuals and different states.

More to the point, Mr. Romney himself has endorsed redistributionism. He does not proposing abolishing Medicaid, Pell grants for college affordability or food stamps — all ways in which government redistributes benefits to those less well off. Indeed, Mr. Romney has proposed more redistribution. Social Security is a redistributionist program .  .  .  . 

Mr. Romney favors — brace yourselves — a progressive tax code. He has said that one of the principles of his details-to-follow tax plan is to maintain the current progressivity of the code so that the wealthiest continue to pay the same share of taxes — that is, a larger share of taxes than the less well-off pay.

It’s indisputable that Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama have diverging views about the danger posed by increasing income inequality and the degree of redistribution in which government should engage. But the Romney campaign’s desperate, clownish portrayal of Mr. Obama does this important debate a serious disservice.

 As I have noted before, I find it bizarre that a political party that wraps itself in religion and claims to worship Christ and the Bible continually maligns European governments where the Gospel message of caring for the sick and the poor is actually done through national health care systems, etc., while in America, Republicans want to callously throw the poor and sick in the gutter.  The hypocrisy is breath taking.

Romney Health Plan Would Cost Seniors Much More

Like just about everything else coming out of the Romney/Ryan campaign, promises to America's senior citizens that Mitt Romney's plans for health care - unlike Barack Obama's - would protect senior citizens from increased health care costs is a lie.    A study reported by the Washington Post indicates that under Romney's plan (to the extent details are known) Medicare premiums would increase as would wellness visits and prescription drug costs.  Once again, the self-styled standard bearers of religious values prove to be the biggest liars.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post story:

It has been a central campaign promise from Mitt Romney: His Medicare overhaul plan would not touch benefits for anyone older than 55.

That may not, however, be the case with the Republican presidential nominee’s other health-care proposals. A growing body of research suggests that his plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid funding would have a direct impact on the health care that seniors receive.

Repealing the health law would mean higher Medicare premiums, the Kaiser Family Foundation found in a recent analysis. Wellness visits and prescription drugs also would cost more. 

The impact could be greatest for the lowest-income seniors, who qualify for both the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and there could be a significant slowdown in federal funds available for their care.
The health-care law cuts $716 billion in Medicare spending, largely by reducing how much insurers and health-care providers get paid to manage seniors’ care. Since Medicare beneficiaries pay a percentage of the program’s overall budget, lower spending means lower premiums.

“If the Medicare savings are repealed, and the benefit enhancements are repealed, there’s a direct effect on seniors today,” said Tricia Neuman, director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Medicare Policy Project.

Repealing the health law also would have an impact on Medicare’s “doughnut hole,” the gap between Medicare’s regular and catastrophic drug coverage, in which seniors are responsible for footing the bill. The average senior who falls into this space spends $604 on prescription drugs.

The biggest change, however, may not be in Medicare at all. It could result from Romney’s planned spending reductions for approximately 6 million low-income seniors eligible for both the Medicare and Medicaid programs.  . . . . . The Romney budget would reduce Medicaid spending on current beneficiaries by more than $600 billion over the next decade, according to a recent Bloomberg Government analysis. 

Thus, it is likely that socially conservative seniors who may support Romney/Ryan for religious and racist reasons will ultimately be cutting their own throats.  Obviously, it would be ironic if their own bigotry helps to destroy them financially.  A bit of Divine justice if you will.

What the Romney-Ryan Budget Would Mean For Virginia

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Since Mitt Romney has stated that he and Paul Ryan are pretty much on the same page in terms of budget proposals, it is important that Virginians truly understand what the Paul Ryan budget would mean for Virginia.  The chart above lays it out (click on the image for a larger version).  It's not a pretty picture and only Tea Party crazies and Christianist extremists out to destroy public education could find it attractive.  Of course, the picture would look far different if the wealthy were required to pay a far percentage of their income (including investment income). 

What Romney's Ryan Pick Means

Since the boyfriend and I have been engaged in family stuff most of the day and evening here in Somerset, Pennsylvania, I've been  out of the loop on the reactions to Romney's pick of Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate.  Personally, I see the selection as fraught with danger for Romney and a sign of desperation to change the narrative.  It certainly is a move to appease the far right and the Tea Party crowd much as McCain's selection of Sarah Palin seems to have been.  While Ryan is light years more intelligent than Palin, he too may be the straw that breaks the camel's back for many voters sitting on the fence.  I believe that Palin lost the 2008 contest for McCain.  Ryan may do the same thing for Romney if the Obama campaign can successfully tie the extremism of Ryan's budget proposal around Romney's neck.  Senior citizens and older baby boomer ought to be terrified at what a Romney-Ryan victory might portend.  Ezra Klein does a good job of summing up some of this in a Washington Post piece.  Here are excerpts:

1. Both Democrats and conservatives are going to get the exact debate they wanted. I’m not so sure about Republicans.

2. This is an admission of fear from the Romney campaign. You don’t make a risky pick like Paul Ryan if you think the fundamentals favor your candidate. You make a risky pick like Paul Ryan if you think the fundamentals don’t favor your candidate. And, right now, the numbers don’t look good for Romney: Obama leads in the Real Clear Politics average of polls by more than four percentage points — his largest lead since April.

3. Related point: Two of the top contenders in the Romney campaign’s veepstakes were Ohio’s Rob Portman and Florida’s Marco Rubio. Given that there’s fairly good evidence that vice presidential candidates are worth at least a point or two in their home states, the Romney campaign’s decision to pick Ryan is evidence that they feel they need to change the national dynamic, not just pick off a battleground state.

4. Romney’s original intention was to make the 2012 election a referendum on President Obama’s management of the economy. Ryan makes it a choice between two competing plans for deficit reduction. This election increasingly resembles the Obama campaign’s strategy rather than the Romney campaign’s strategy.

5. It’s worth recalling how Ryan became a semi-household name. It wasn’t a Republican strategy to put him forward. As Ryan Lizza recounts in his New Yorker profile of Ryan, it was a Democratic strategy to put Ryan forward. Ryan, he writes, “was caught between the demands of the Republican leaders, who wanted nothing to do with his Roadmap, and his own belief that the Party had to offer a sweeping alternative vision to Obama’s. Ryan soon had an unlikely ally, in Obama himself.” While Republicans were trying to keep Ryan quiet, the Obama administration was trying to make him famous. They saw his plans as the clearest distillation of the GOP’s governing philosophy — and they thought it would drive voters towards the Democrats. We’ll know in November whether that was a genius strategy or an epic miscalculation.

6. Consider the case for Romney until today: He’s a relatively moderate businessman running because his experience in the private-sector gives him crucial insight into how to manage the economy. Now consider Ryan: He’s worked in politics his entire life, beginning as an aide to Sen. Bob Kasten, then working for Sen. Sam Brownback and as a speechwriter to Rep. Jack Kemp. He’s known as a relatively ideological politician who has put forward a detailed policy plan to remake the federal government. It’s a rather different message about what’s important. And how does Romney say the problem with Barack Obama is that he’s “never spent a day in the private sector” and then put Ryan a heartbeat away from the presidency?

7. Ryan upends Romney’s whole strategy. Until now, Romney’s play has been very simple: Don’t get specific. In picking Ryan, he has yoked himself to each and every one of Ryan’s specifics. And some of those specifics are quite…surprising. For instance: Ryan has told the Congressional Budget Office that his budget will bring all federal spending outside Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to 3.75 percent of GDP by 2050. That means defense, infrastructure, education, food safety, basic research, and food stamps — to name just a few — will be less than four percent of GDP in 2050.

8. It’s not just that Romney now has to defend Ryan’s budget. To some degree, that was always going to be true. What he will now have to defend is everything else Ryan has proposed. Ryan was, for instance, the key House backer of Social Security privatization. His bill, The Social Security Personal Savings Guarantee and Prosperity Act of 2005, was so aggressive that it was rejected by the Bush administration. Now it’s Romney’s bill to defend. In Florida.

9. Joe Biden has a lot of debate prep ahead of him. I’ve interviewed Ryan three times. Twice on health care (here and here), and once on economics (here). He’s very quick on his feet, and he’s got a lot of experience explaining his plans to skeptical audiences.  .  .  .  Democrats underestimate his political skills at their peril.

10. Everyone always says they want an election focused on the issues. For better or worse, we’ve got one.

I believe that if voters truly come to understand just how extreme Ryan's proposals have been, they will run to the Democrats.  The big issueis whether Obama can truly educate folks sufficiently before November.

Federal Judge: Crackpots and Lunatics in the GOP Have Made Me Less Conservative

Judge Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has long been one of the nation's most respected and admired conservative jurists.  But like many others, he finds that the sickness - an almost mental illness that combines religious extremism, greed and a total lack of compassion for others, and a refusal to deal with objective reality - that predominates in today's Republican Party is driving him away from conservatism. As a former Republican and party activist, I fully relate to Posner's disgust with what the GOP has become and how it has truly made the label "conservative" into something ugly.  Frankly, I don't see things getting any better as Mitt Romney continues to prostitute himself to the nastiest elements in the GOP.  NPR has a piece on Judge Posner's retreat from conservatism.  I particularly enjoy his use of the terms "crackpots" and "lunatics."   Here are excerpts:

Judge Richard Posner, a conservative on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, has long been one of the nation's most respected and admired legal thinkers on the right. But in an interview with NPR, he expressed exasperation at the modern Republican Party, and confessed that he has become "less conservative" as a result.

Posner expressed admiration for President Ronald Reagan and the economist Milton Friedman, two pillars of conservatism. But over the past 10 years, Posner said, "there's been a real deterioration in conservative thinking. And that has to lead people to re-examine and modify their thinking."
"I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy," he said.

Posner, who was appointed to the appeals court by Reagan, speculated that the leaks about the deliberations over the national health care law — which are apparently designed to discredit Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion upholding the law — would backfire. "I think these right-wingers who are blasting Roberts are making a very serious mistake," he said.

"Because if you put [yourself] in his position ... what's he supposed to think? That he finds his allies to be a bunch of crackpots? Does that help the conservative movement? I mean, what would you do if you were Roberts? All the sudden you find out that the people you thought were your friends have turned against you, they despise you, they mistreat you, they leak to the press. What do you do? Do you become more conservative? Or do you say, 'What am I doing with this crowd of lunatics?' Right? Maybe you have to re-examine your position."

As NPR notes, in addition to serving as a federal appeals court judge, Posner is the author of several  dozen books on subjects ranging from law and economics to aging and literature.  I don't blame him whatsoever for wanting to distance himself from today's "conservatives."

The Right-Wing Backlash Against John Roberts

Brooks Kraft / Corbis

I've never been a fan of Chief Justice John Roberts and was not happy when he was confirmed by the Senate.  Anyone nominated by Chimperator George Bush was suspect in my eyes.  But now, I find myself feeling almost sorry for the man as the lunatics of the far right continue to be apoplectic over his action in upholding what the right derisively calls "Obamacare."  You would think that overnight Roberts had become a child molester or that he'd raped a nun on the altar of St. Peter's basilica.   The flying spittle and conniption fits seem to know few limits.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at how Roberts went from being a hero to the Kool-Aid drinkers to a object of scorn and derision.  I especially like the comment on Virginia's nasty piece of work that goes by the name Eric Cantor.  Here are highlights:

The reaction to Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion on health-care reform suggests that the GOP is morphing into the Monster Raving Loony Party—which actually exists in Britain but has never won a seat in Parliament. It also provides more evidence for the delusional conviction of today’s Republicans that they are ordained to rule—and if they don’t, it’s because of conspiracy, betrayal, and the sinister subversion of what they see as American ideals and the ideal America.

The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which channels a combination of its owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its ideological heroes, from Friedrich Hayek to Robert Bork, said Roberts had been “intimidated” by “the political class and legal left” and “swayed from [his] constitutional duties.” The chief justice was criticized for caring about the perceived legitimacy of the Supreme Court, which presumably is and should be one of his most important responsibilities.

The columnist Charles Krauthammer had already accused President Obama of “bully[ing]” the court after the administration had “lost” the oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act. It was a preemptive critique that ultimately proved to be remarkably unprescient.

This kind of whining was at the milder end of the loony spectrum. Right-wing radio talker Michael Savage claimed that Roberts’s epilepsy medicine had triggered “cognitive dissociation in what he is saying.” Glenn Beck called the chief justice a coward. There were calls for his impeachment.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor denounced the “black robes” for what they had just done to America. One is tempted to respond: better that than the white robes who once gathered at night in Cantor’s Virginia.

Mitt Romney, who apparently learned constitutional law at the Harvard Business School, or studied it in-between job destruction and offshoring deals, confidently proclaimed that health-care reform should have been thrown out: “I disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision.”

Hell hath no fury like a Tea Party GOP steamed that a majority of the Supreme Court refused to drink the right-wing Kool-Aid. Isn’t it conceivable that the Republicans lost the case on the merits, just as they lost fair and square in Congress on the stimulus, financial reform, and the health-care law itself? That view is essential to a functioning democracy, but alien to an opposition now loyal only to its own self-righteous dogmatism. 

The right appears ready to shred any institution and promote any myth to assure its success or explain its failures. But the conspiracy theory that the chief justice changed or “capitulated,” as The Wall Street Journal alleged, is confounded by the reality, too little noticed at the time, that he previewed the guiding principle of his decision during the oral arguments in March. 

As the right wing backlash raged, Roberts, who was preparing to leave for a meeting in Malta, joked to a conference of judges and lawyers that he was headed for “an impregnable island fortress. It seemed like a good idea.” The rest of America is left to contend with a Republican Party whose attitude seems to be “my way or it was highway robbery,” a party that sees intrigue in every issue and a plot in every Obama policy, or even in his mere presence in the White House.

But the beast must be fed; Republican politicians have to satisfy a base that instinctively, bitterly, rejects anything and everything that comes from Obama as fundamentally un-American. Many in that base just can’t abide an African-American in the White House.

The resulting backlash to this, the grievance and paranoia, have been harnessed to the self-interest of plutocrats like the Koch brothers, the supermen of the super PACs. They don’t share or care about the Snopesian reflex against diversity and equality, except as it suits their own ends. They play on it to trick people into voting against themselves, against their own economic prospects, in order to restore the era of the robber barons.

There's more on the psychotic nature of the GOP base which is worth a read.  One truly cannot be a Republican nowadays unless one is either mentally ill or consumed by greed and a desire to rob from the poor to give to the wealthy.  It's an upside down world view that is very scary.

Yet More Evidence That Rush Limbaugh's an Idiot

I put up a post the other day about the cretins of the far right who have said that they were considering moving to Canada to escape Obamacare, etc.  Never mind that Canada has a national health insurance plan and other laws far more liberal than in the USA.  Now, Rush Limbaugh has provided evidence that he's at least as stupid as his listeners:

The Bizarre Morality of Maggie Gallagher and the Christian Right

With same sex marriage laws being place on the ballot in Washington State, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota, the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy - which I now view as part of the theocratic Christian Right (the Christofascists if you will) - the National Organization for Marriage and many other "family values organizations will be spending many millions of dollars aimed at the sole purpose of keeping same sex love and relationships inferior under the civil laws of these states.  Millions of dollars that ought to be spent fulling the Gospel message, not persecuting other human beings.  The image above from Andrew Sullivan's blog hit home with me and made me ask myself WTF is wrong with these self-congratulatory "godly Christians?"  Here are details that go with the image above:

A Sudanese mother holds her baby waiting for food at a malnutrition and feeding center at the Yida refugee camp along the border with North Sudan June 29, 2012 in Yida, South Sudan. Yida refugee camp has swollen to nearly 60,000 as the refugees flee from South Kordofan in North Sudan. The rainy season has increased the numbers of sick children suffering from diarrhea and severe malnutrition as the international aid community struggles to provide basic assistance to the growing population, with most arriving with only the clothes they are wearing. Many of the new arrivals walked up to 2 weeks or more to reach the camp. By Paula Bronstein/Getty Images.

I find it stunning that increasingly, conservative Christians seem to be the antithesis of what the Gospel message is about.  The same goes for their political prostitutes in the GOP as summarized in the image below.Am I wrong?

 

The Health Care Ruling - The Real Winners

I am repeatedly dumbfounded by the way in which the GOP manages to use its anti-tax mantra or its claimed devotion to conservative Christianity - white conservative Christianity, of course - to dupe the biased and downright stupid into supporting policies and laws that are decidedly against their own best interests.  The Founding Fathers recognized the importance of an informed electorate and sadly, with most of the right getting their news from outlets like Fox News and the Drudge Report, the have no clue as to what is really going on most of the time (remember the study that found regular Fox News viewers less informed on issues than those who did not watch any news programs regularly?).  In a column in the New York Times Paul Krugman lays out the winners under yesterdays health care ruling and compares the costs with the GOP tax cuts for the wealthy.  Guess which one costs the government more.  Here are highlights:

There will, no doubt, be many headlines declaring this a big victory for President Obama, which it is. But the real winners are ordinary Americans — people like you. 

 

How many people are we talking about? You might say 30 million, the number of additional people the Congressional Budget Office says will have health insurance thanks to Obamacare. But that vastly understates the true number of winners because millions of other Americans — including many who oppose the act — would have been at risk of being one of those 30 million. 

So add in every American who currently works for a company that offers good health insurance but is at risk of losing that job (and who isn’t in this world of outsourcing and private equity buyouts?); every American who would have found health insurance unaffordable but will now receive crucial financial help; every American with a pre-existing condition who would have been flatly denied coverage in many states. 

In short, unless you belong to that tiny class of wealthy Americans who are insulated and isolated from the realities of most people’s lives, the winners from that Supreme Court decision are your friends, your relatives, the people you work with — and, very likely, you.  

But what about the cost? Put it this way: the budget office’s estimate of the cost over the next decade of Obamacare’s “coverage provisions” — basically, the subsidies needed to make insurance affordable for all — is about only a third of the cost of the tax cuts, overwhelmingly favoring the wealthy, that Mitt Romney is proposing over the same period. 

So the law that the Supreme Court upheld is an act of human decency that is also fiscally responsible. It’s not perfect, by a long shot — it is, after all, originally a Republican plan,  .  .  .  .  

Which brings us to the nature of the people who tried to kill health reform — and who will, of course, continue their efforts despite this unexpected defeat.   At one level, the most striking thing about the campaign against reform was its dishonesty. Remember “death panels”?  .   .   .   .   the unscrupulous nature of the campaign against reform was exceptional. And, rest assured, all the old lies and probably a bunch of new ones will be rolled out again in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision. 

But what was and is really striking about the anti-reformers is their cruelty. It would be one thing if, at any point, they had offered any hint of an alternative proposal to help Americans with pre-existing conditions, Americans who simply can’t afford expensive individual insurance, Americans who lose coverage along with their jobs. But it has long been obvious that the opposition’s goal is simply to kill reform, never mind the human consequences. 

The point is that this isn’t over — not on health care, not on the broader shape of American society. The cruelty and ruthlessness that made this court decision such a nail-biter aren’t going away.

Yes, note the cruelty of opponents.  In their minds those who can't afford coverage or who cannot obtain coverage are merely disposable.  Human trash, if you will.  And what's chilling is that most of these opponents are the ones who claim to support  "family values" and wear their religiosity on their sleeves.  The biggest threat to compassion and decency in this country comes from Christian conservatives many of whom make the Pharisees of the Gospel look like very upright and virtuous people.

Washington Post on Health Care Ruling: A Ruling That’s Good for the Country

The main Washington Post editorial on today's ruling by the Supreme Court summarizes why the ruling is good for the country.  And that's not even factoring in how the provision of health care coverage for the poor and those with pre-existing conditions is in full accord with the Gospel message. I truly had feared that the extremism - dare I say insanity? - of Antonin Scalia might prevail and tens of millions of Americans would have been relegated to the status of disposable trash.  Ironically, I saw an SPCA ad while blogging and the way in which the GOP and its "godly Christian" supporters relegate so many Americans to a status akin to animals scheduled for euthanizing  truck me as telling.  Conservatism - or at least today's version under the GOP and the Christofascists - is truly evil.  It's all about greed and hording one's possessions and money and an utter disregard for the common humanity of other citizens.  Here are highligts for the Post editorial:

THE SUPREME COURT’S 5 to 4 decision upholding the core of the Affordable Care Act is good news for the court and the country. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was statesmanlike in choosing to side with four more liberal justices in finding that the law’s most controversial provision, the mandate that individuals obtain health insurance, was a constitutional exercise of Congress’s power “to lay and collect taxes.”

[R]ather than use that finding to invalidate the law, as his four colleagues would have done, Justice Roberts cited precedent that instructs the court to resort to “every reasonable construction” that may “save a statute from unconstitutionality.” 

In so doing, he also protected the court itself. It avoided playing the uncomfortable role of overturning a legislative solution four decades in the making, full of choices and tradeoffs among competing approaches and goals.

In the only defeat for the administration, the court curtailed the government’s power to compel states to expand coverage under the joint federal-state Medicaid program for the poor. 

Even if President Obama is reelected, many practical questions remain. Is the penalty — now tax — imposed on those who fail to obtain insurance big enough to induce the uninsured to buy coverage? Are insurers permitted to charge different enough premiums based on age? These, and many more, are important practical questions whose answers will become known only now that the court, wisely, has allowed the law to go forward.

In an editorial Thursday, we said that many Americans would be watching the court to see whether, at a time of extreme partisanship, it could craft a decision that impressed as an act of law, not politics. In our view, the court passed that test of legitimacy. Now the arguments over Obamacare can continue where they are best fought out, in the political arena.

The GOP and "Obamacare" - Be Careful What You Ask For

The demagogues within the GOP and the party's Christofascist/Tea Party base rant and whine about "Obamacare" yet have no real plan as to how to address the nation's horrible lack of access to health care for millions of Americans.  Unlike virtually every other developed industrialized country, the USA still treats its citizens as disposable trash and leaves countless millions without access to health care, especially in terms of preventive health care.  We spend more than any other country on a per capita basis yet have the most inefficient health care delivery system.  True, if you're Mitt Romney and able to buy whatever health care you want - or a member of Congress with a Rolls Royce health care plan - then America has a wonderful health care system.  For the rest of us, many still have to think whether or not they should go to the doctor and pay their out of pocket co-pay or deductible.  Now, with the U.S. Supreme Court possibly handing down a decision on the challenge to "Obamacare,"  the GOP has to face the music: if Obamacare is struck down, what will they propose to the millions of Americans who will either lose coverage completely or see significant curtailments to their health care coverage.  Right now, the answer is nothing.  And that is something that could give Obama a club with which to beat the GOP over the head in the run up to November.  Talking Points Memo looks at the sudden realization coming over the GOP demagogues.  Here are highlights: 

Over the last week, the signals have been abundant that congressional Republicans are pivoting from their total opposition to “Obamacare” toward supporting the more popular chunks of the law.

It’s an election-year strategy to mitigate the fallout if the Supreme Court grants them their wish and strikes down the law next month. The House GOP is weighing a replacement plan to reinstate its more popular components, such as guaranteeing coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions, letting people under 26 stay on a parent’s policy and closing the Medicare “doughnut hole.” The idea is also percolating among Senate Republicans.

“I think it is all part of the fact that repeal was so far away in 2010 and even in 2011. Now, as the possibility arises that part of the law could be repealed is only a month away, there is some disorder,” said a well-connected health industry lobbyist and former GOP aide.

Republicans don’t want to be accused of throwing a swath of disabled people, young adults and seniors to the wolves if they succeed at scrapping “Obamacare.” But those fixes were made possible thanks to the unpopular provisions that accompanied them, most notably the individual mandate. Forbidding insurers to turn away sick customers is ultimately unworkable without a provision to expand coverage to healthy people. Health policy experts — and policy-savvy Republicans — recognize this economic reality.

In other words, Republicans are offering voters an implausibly rosy proposition: Enjoy the popular pieces of the Affordable Care Act but don’t worry about the unpopular components. But if the GOP actually tries to put that plan into effect, they’ll run into a world of problems — not least of which would be an all-out assault from the insurance industry, which will feel the hardest pinch from the GOP’s “have your cake and eat it too” proposal. That raises questions as to how serious Republicans are about the replacement plan.

“Market reforms won’t work without a mandate,” said an insurance industry source. The industry has been at pains to explain the inextricable link between guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions and a mandate to purchase insurance.
 
As a short-term political posture, it has served them well. But now that the Supreme Court might give them what they want, they’re forced to deal with the reality of what it would mean. And that’s a huge wake-up call for the party, especially one without a clear leader to herd the cats as they figure out their next move.

As one Republican health care aide put it to TPM, “I do think some Republicans are finally starting to realize they could be the dog that caught the car.”

I for one would love to see the GOP's demagoguery bit it in the ass big time.   It would also be delicious to see the party that wraps itself in religiosity be firmly tied to throwing the poor and elderly to the wolves - which is what the Christianists love to do to anyone who doesn't subscribe to their poisonous beliefs.. 

One Guess on How the Court Will Rule on "Obamacare"

As I have noted before, I finding very revealing that the industrialized nation with the most supposed religiosity and self-proclaimed Christians is also the only industrialized nation that treats its citizens as largely disposable trash through its refusal to provide decent health care. It seems that the Bible beating Christianists and their political whores in the Republican Party selectively ripped out all of the Gospel passages that mandate caring for the sick and the poor and feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless. Instead, they focus on how much loot they can amass for themselves while kicking their neighbors to the curb if not under the bus. This utter hypocrisy - and one could argue even sinful behavior based on Christ's directive to the rich man to sell of of his belongings and give the proceeds to the poor - is particularly stark in terms of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who fairly shriek out about their religiosity while making greed a virtue: Scalia, Thomas and Alito. A column in the Washington Post analyzes what the Court's ultimate ruling may on health care reform may be. Should the law be struck down, to me it will be an indictment of the utter moral bankruptcy and religious hypocrisy of the far right and certain of the Court's justices. Here are column highlights:

Like most Washington policy wonks, I spent too much of last week reading transcripts of the Supreme Court arguments over the constitutionality of the new health reform law. This was to be a “teaching moment” for the country, an opportunity to see the best and the brightest engage in a reasoned debate on the limits of federal power. Instead, what we got too often was political posturing, Jesuitical hair-splitting and absurd hypotheticals.

That said, I don’t agree with the conventional wisdom that, in light of last week’s oral arguments, it’s a sure thing that the court will overturn the law or its individual mandate.

Judging from their blatantly partisan bleating from the bench, it is certain that Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito will join Clarence Thomas in doing whatever it takes to impose their conservative, free-market, nothing’s-changed-since-1788 agenda on the country.

An essential element of the Republican strategy these days is that, whenever confronted with an obvious failure of the free market, the correct response is always to try to turn the tables and blame it on misguided government policy.

Scalia and Alito simply gave it the old Republican razzmatazz, blaming the government for creating the problem in the first place by obligating hospitals to treat the sick even if they are uninsured and cannot pay for the care. It was the kind of sophomoric logic you’d expect from high school debaters — or a Republican presidential candidate at a tea party rally — not from members of the highest court in the richest country on Earth.

Another of Scalia and Alito’s cute debating tricks was to latch on to an opposing argument and take it to its illogical extreme in order to show how silly it is. By this technique, the individual mandate suddenly became the first step on the proverbial slippery slope to government requiring that all Americans buy broccoli or a gym membership because those, too, will make us all healthier and thereby lower health-care costs.

It is axiomatic, of course, that the power to regulate, or to tax, or to criminalize is the power to regulate, tax or criminalize stupidly. . . . .

But for some reason, when it comes to requiring Americans either to buy health insurance or pay a fee, we are now supposed to believe that “all bets are off,” according to Chief Justice John Roberts, or that “a fundamental shift” has occurred in the relationship between the individual and government, according to Justice Anthony Kennedy. Really?

Surely Justices Roberts and Kennedy and their legion of summa cum laude law clerks can conjure up a workable criteria to distinguish a law requiring the purchase of health insurance from a law requiring the purchase of pomegranate juice.

If there is a legitimate challenge to the law, my hunch is that it is likely to come over the question of whether the individual mandate is as narrowly drawn as possible to achieve its objective. If regulating the interstate market for health care requires regulating health insurance, and if assuring a healthy insurance market requires solving the problem of free-riders who drive up premiums and taxes for everyone else, then isn’t the solution to require everyone to buy “catastrophic” insurance?

Roberts asked that question twice, but got no satisfactory answer, either from the solicitor general or any of the other justices. The reason is that there is no good answer.

In the end, Roberts will see the institutional peril in overturning the most significant piece of domestic legislation in a generation, particularly in the wake of the overtly partisan decisions of Bush v. Gore and the Citizens United. With Kennedy in tow, the chief is likely to articulate a modest new limit on Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce that would allow health reform to proceed in some fashion. Or, as he hinted in oral arguments, he may duck the commerce clause altogether and simply uphold the individual mandate as a legitimate exercise of Congress’s taxing power. The cacophony of accompanying dissents and concurring opinions will make it difficult to figure out who won, who lost and exactly what precedent was set.

The law, in other words, remains an ass.

Having once done legal work for a large hospital system, what no one on the right wants to admit is that we are already paying for the coverage of the uninsured in the least efficient manner possible. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that $5 aspirins are a reality because we're paying for all the aspirins doled out to those without coverage. Yet in the process, we ignore preventive care and thus guarantee that we will be faced with more catastrophic costs down the road. France and many other nations - that don't parade around boasting of the religiosity, by the way - have figured this out. Why can't the hubris filled USA?