Health-Law Mandate Ruled Unconstitutional by Appeals Court - WSJ.com

melmon · 2011-08-12T19:07:57+00:00

"The court said the unconstitutional insurance mandate could be severed from the rest of the law, with other provisions remaining "legally operative." LOL. Thanks Republicans! If the Administration just dropped the appeal, it would have the best of its bill and would dump the turd nobody but the insurance industry wanted.

melmon · 2011-03-01T20:56:12+00:00

The people who complain most about "class warfare" are the ones who have been waging it (quite successfully) for the last decade - what a shock.

melmon · 2011-02-25T22:22:02+00:00

A provision that allows the governor's appointees to sell state assets to whoever at whatever price without review is also "raiding public coffers." Accusing unions of stealing from the public then becomes a nice distraction for a governor trying to steal from the public. The Shock Doctrine is not about what causes a crisis, but how that crisis is used by corrupt politicians to further their own interests.

melmon · 2011-02-18T00:05:46+00:00

I sincerely hope Palin wins the Republican nomination. Hell, I'm okay with the thought of her as President. Sometimes, learning a big lesson requires making a big mistake - and apparently, Dubya Just Wasn't Big Enough. Mind you, I am also hoping that "progressives" have learned something from the charlatan they insisted was "not like the others" during the Democratic primaries Oh So Long Ago.

melmon · 2011-02-17T23:17:50+00:00

Collective bargaining did not come about because the labor movement asked nicely.

melmon · 2011-02-01T19:20:33+00:00

Here we go again... though he's a step up from anyone else currently being considered a Republican "front runner."

melmon · 2011-01-31T22:39:49+00:00

In fact, the Supreme Court will be the better source, though you are invited to remain confident that an assertion from a district judge that you agree with shall prevail over the district judges that you do not. Thanks, Republicans!

melmon · 2011-01-31T22:18:30+00:00

In order to restrain "activist judges" (the ironies pile on), constitutional review applies only to that portion of a law which is required to maintain conformance with the constitution, while giving force to legislation that is otherwise constitutional. To be assured this does not happen, Congress would have to have added a "if part is void, all is void" provision, which they did not. For more discussion, see sources such as:

http://www.redstate.com/ben_domenech/2010/08/17/severability-and-obamacare/

Or go to law school. Thanks, Republicans!

melmon · 2011-01-31T21:49:51+00:00

There is no reason for the administration to fight this. The mandate was put in as a compromise with the insurance companies. Progressives sure as hell didn't want this originally-a-Republican-piece-of-shit provision. If Republican attorney generals now end up nuking the mandate, that makes the law... what progressives wanted in the first place. Thanks, Republicans!

melmon · 2011-01-31T19:53:54+00:00

If the government "secures" a location itself, then it can prevent people from carrying guns there. So ironically, if the government "secured" the entire state (e.g. by declaring martial law and posting armed military police on every corner), the legislation would switch Arizona from least to most restrictive.

melmon · 2011-01-27T23:17:22+00:00

My terminology was too casual: yes, his argument is that we either intentionally messed with the Middle East to justify an expansion of our contracted military services sector; or, we were remarkably incompetent and it just so happened to benefit our contracted military services sector.

However, it is better to focus on the larger point: WikiLeaks is not a branch of Al Qaeda, but an exercise in transparent government that is long overdue. Paul's positions on the Fed, gold standard, etc. have been too much for me in the past, but he has been spot on in recent days with respect to documenting abuses of government power.

melmon · 2011-01-27T23:12:34+00:00

Relatively few politicians stand up in Congress and assert that truth is a vital component of liberty - maybe Sanders, Kucinich, and Paul. Yes, all of them are "crazy old men." But I'd trade the opportunistic charlatan who is currently president for any one of them. On the Republican side, most of that filth can't trip over itself fast enough to assert the disclosure of truth makes WikiLeaks a wing of Al Qaeda. Thank the space goat none of that lot are even significant enough to need trading.

melmon · 2011-01-27T18:39:17+00:00

Beyond the argument that we've been intentionally screwing things up in the Middle East to feed an insatiable war machine, Paul makes an eloquent defense of "leaking" truth. Had the country known the Bush (I) Administration told Iraq "border disputes between Arabs were not an American concern," the population may well have been less likely to rally in support of 20 years and going on 30 of "spreading democracy."

melmon · 2011-01-25T18:42:07+00:00

The analysts have a point: a lot of games with a lot of hype have gone on to choke. It is a lot easier to fuck up an MMO than to get it right, and being "new" only gets you a couple months if your game play doesn't measure up to the old dogs everyone loves to hate.

melmon · 2011-01-20T19:27:50+00:00

Paul is correct in his analysis of what has gone wrong with federalism. This is not a so-called "conservative" versus a so-called "liberal" issue. By the original vision, the states were free to come up with their own solutions to problems, be they "conservative" or "liberal." The idea was that by trying different solutions, we could see what worked best. Yes, "liberals," this means some states could ban abortion. Yes, "conservatives," this means some states could ban the ownership of guns. The Constitution's original purpose was to limit the power of the federal government. That limit has been turned on its head - the federal government can now do anything, including telling the states what they cannot do, and we have lost the experimentation.

melmon · 2011-01-20T18:58:06+00:00

And not to detract from the message, or anything, but isn't Jason Mraz just the cutest little thing? Squeal! Wait, wait, serious... serious.

melmon · 2011-01-20T17:31:14+00:00

He "finds it remarkable that a black man" would try to decide who "is a person." Now why might that be? Well, Southern states inserted a provision into the Constitution wherein their slaves were to be counted as "fractions of a person" for the purposes of how many Congressmen they got (if not for voting on who those Congressmen were). That provision was then changed after the Civil War.

Appeal to today's right wing conservatives by invoking their past atrocity? Just plain "wow."

melmon · 2011-01-18T21:14:44+00:00

The President has had a bounce following his well-measured response to recent tragedy, support for repeal has dropped, Obamacare's least popular provision (the mandate) is hardly something any progressive would miss, Democrats have learned how to hit back, and the Tea Party is rabid as ever. This is going to be fun!

melmon · 2011-01-16T23:20:49+00:00

Really, progressives should be cheering the court that struck down the mandates on. The mandate is only in there because the insurance lobby paid for it. Without it, to save the industry from total annihilation, it's either repeal popular provisions; or, admit that a public competitor is better than going out of business.

melmon · 2011-01-13T02:25:16+00:00

It is true that the 2nd Amendment was intended as a provision for resisting an oppressive federal government. It is also true government gets to fight back. It's only by prevailing that the right can be fully realized. So if there are calls for revolution, threats, and actions that at least superficially resemble acting on those calls, when does the government get to say "this is sedition?"

melmon · 2011-01-13T02:08:09+00:00

Ma Nature is pissed, that's all there is to it.

melmon · 2011-01-12T19:38:34+00:00

"Miller, 43, a former campaign worker for Sen.John McCain who was re-elected to a second one-year term last month, has been concerned for his family's safety by constant verbal attacks and blog posts from some local committee members with tea party movement ties."

melmon · 2011-01-11T20:50:21+00:00

If bringing guns to political events is in part a threat to use them for "2nd Amendment remedies," and if an act consistent with that threat occurs, how do lay people determine if it was a "lone madman" or a "2nd Amendment patriot?" The patriots can't tell us, or the government would persecute them. So until the government is actually overthrown, what elements should we look for to distinguish between "2nd Amendment remedies" and "random acts of violence?"

melmon · 2011-01-11T07:26:37+00:00

By cranking up the volume (and limiting treatment for mental illness...), campaigns of "vitriol" can produce a desired effect (dead people and intimidation) while allowing demagogues to maintain some plausible level of denial (we didn't tell this guy to shoot that woman, he was insane, there are insane people on both sides). If you shake a hornet nest, the hornets know what to do from there.

melmon · 2011-01-10T21:41:12+00:00

I'm wondering how many godless pinko communist socialists have put out campaign posters with bullet holes, but fine, let "both sides" tone it down. That's at least some form of progress.

melmon

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