The Commentariat -- March 30, 2012
CW: Today's comments are extraordinary. Treat yourself.
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "If the usual process occurs, the justices of the Supreme Court will gather around a large rectangular table Friday morning and, one by one, cast their votes on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care law. They will let the rest of us know the outcome in due time.... In a town where secrets are hard to keep, the Supreme Court is a striking outlier. The justices and their clerks know the outcome of cases almost immediately, but it’s rare for rulings to become known before the justices announce them." ...
... Paul Krugman: "... we don’t know how this will go. But it’s hard not to feel a sense of foreboding — and to worry that the nation’s already badly damaged faith in the Supreme Court’s ability to stand above politics is about to take another severe hit."
... Gene Robinson: Justice Anthony "Kennedy seemed to be genuinely looking for a principle that permitted a health insurance mandate but not a broccoli mandate. And [Solicitor General Donald] Verrilli gave him one. The market for health insurance is inseparable from the market for health care, he argued, and every citizen is a consumer of health care. Those who choose not to buy health insurance require health care anyway — often expensive care at hospital emergency rooms — and these costs are borne by the rest of us in the form of higher premiums." ...
... NEW. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The way to frame a Supreme Court argument meant to persuade Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is to talk about liberty. It is his touchstone and guiding principle, and his conception of liberty is likely to determine the future of President Obama’s health care law." CW: also, look for yet another snide remark from Scalia. ...
... Jack Balkin defines three limiting principles that justify "the individual mandate but doesn't give Congress unlimited power under the Commerce Clause." ...
... Ezra Klein interviews Constitutional Prof. Akhil Reed Amar, who makes it so simple even Scalia could understand it: "The limit is the Constitution. What Congress does has to be in the enumerated powers. One of those powers is the Interstate Commerce Clause. What are the limits on that power? It only applies to regulations that are interstate and commercial. So Congress has to be actually trying to address a commercial problem that spills over state lines. And that’s clearly true here. At any given nanosecond, millions of Americans are out of state.... And if ... any of these Americans fall sick, we go to a local ER. That’s an interstate issue. Similarly, if we don’t cover preexisting conditions, we have a lock-in for labor mobility — many workers will be unable to take better jobs out-of-state and thereby contribute more to their families and to the economy. And that’s what the Interstate Commerce Clause was all about: Getting rid of the impediments to genuine interstate commerce, to the free movement of goods and labor." ...
... Simon Lazarus of The New Republic defends Solicitor General Donald Verrilli against widespread criticism: "... having sat through the oral argument and re-read the transcript, I have to dissent. Especially on paper, Verrilli’s performance appears quite strong — and possibly more effective than that of his opponents, Michael Carvin and the justly renowned Paul Clement." CW: that's exactly the point I made the other day. The government may lose its case, but it won't be Verrilli's fault -- it will be the fault of Tea Party Justices using childish hypotheticals to claim that if they don't save America from ObamaCare, President Obama & the Democrats will make you eat bran & broccoli & force you to buy exercise equipment. ...
... David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix: "I have no idea where the justices will come down on the constitutionality issue. I just want people to back up and remember that when jackasses yap about the potential broccoli-gestapo tyranny that might in theory stifle the liberties of those handfuls of hypothetical Americans who wish to live free of health insurance, there are in reality millions of American children who, through absolutely no fault of their own, are in fact systematically denied access to basic health care every day." Read the whole post. ...
... Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker discusses some of the alternatives to the individual mandate -- none would be as good as the mandate, because the result would be to raise premiums & lower enrollment, but they would allow the law to function -- unless of course Scalia gets his way & strikes the whole law. Commenter Bill Kellett has a point: "So when OSHA demands safety glasses be worn they aren't requiring a product be purchased?"
.... CW: every one of us buys stuff because the government says we must -- car buyers could save thousands of dollars if they didn't have to pay for all those pesky safety features; no, no one forces you to buy a car, but for perhaps the majority of American adults, a car is a practical necessity. Even if you take public transportation, you're paying for the federally-required features on the bus or the train. That is, the government requires almost everyone to buy -- or rent -- vehicular safety products: airbags, seat belts, horns! Moreover, if I take the city bus, it will never take me across state lines; the bus is not engaging in interstate commerce, but it must be built to meet federal safety standards, & I have to help pay for those features. It's a mandate.
Charles Pierce on Trayvon Martin and "the way of the gun." An excellent post. A commenter on the post, Katherine Harris, writes, "I just want someone to explain to me, without laughing, how a twenty-eight-year-old man with no affiliation with any kind of organization carrying a concealed weapon in any way constitutes 'a well-regulated militia.'" ...
... CW: But I will disagree with Pierce on one thing. If Americans want safer gun laws, the one way to get them is to eviscerate the NRA, because it is they who are purchasing politicians & writing all this legislation for them. So if you belong to the NRA -- QUIT.
An Etiquette Lesson for White Conservative Guys
Elspeth Reeve of The Atlantic volunteers to help out Victor Davis Hanson, a white conservative guy who complains in the National Review of Interracial Etiquette that
The country is obsessed with decoding a scratchy tape to ascertain whether Mr. Zimmerman said 'cold, coons, goons, or punks,' with the idea that if the garbled word proves a racial slur.... No one can explain why Mr. Martin felt a need to so self-identify [as No Limit Nigga on his Twitter account]; no one seems to care; and no one can provide rules of the conditions under which (who says it, and when, why, how) society must deplore the use of such an epithet."
... CW: yes, I know you think VDH is an incredible asshole (almost always an appropriate slur when applied to goons & punks like VDH [and why does he need three names?]), but Reeve is more patient. She writes, "... the rules are pretty clear: if you're white, don't use the N-word. But even if Hanson thinks there's some blurriness left, there's a really, really clear-cut situation when you should not say the N-word, or any other racial slur, is when you're considering shooting an unarmed teenager who happens to be black."
Teresa Smith of the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Journal: "... the [Canadian] government has announced it will phase out the [penny] beginning this fall. The decision, announced in Thursday's federal budget, came down to dollars and cents. Due to inflation, 'the penny's burden to the economy has grown relative to its value as a means of payment,' according to budget documents."
Right Wing World *
... NEW. Julie Davis & Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News: "A Republican Party web-based advertisement uses altered audio from U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments to attack President Barack Obama’s health-care law. In a spot circulated [Wednesday], the Republican National Committee excerpts the opening seconds of the March 27 presentation of ... Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, in which he is heard struggling for words and twice stopping to drink water.... A review of a transcript and recordings of those moments shows that Verrilli took a sip of water just once, paused for a much briefer period, and completed his thought, rather than stuttering and trailing off as heard in the doctored version." ...
... Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog: the RNC ad "... also sets back the effort to get the Court to become more transparent.... The Justices now have before them a perfect illustration of the gross distortion that can instantly be made of recordings of their proceedings. What is to stop the same misleading stunt being pulled with the Justices’ own oral argument questions and comments? Nothing at all. The Court made a special exception in releasing the oral argument tape for the health care arguments so promptly, and it probably will hesitate before doing so again. If there were any chance that the Justices would permit cameras in the Court, I do not see happening now." Thanks to contributor Dave S. for the link.
* Where the motto is "If the facts don't fit, change 'em."
Local News
NEW. Tim Jones of Bloomberg News: Wisconsin "Governor Scott Walker will face a recall vote June 5 after election officials in Madison cleared the way for an ouster election. The Government Accountability Board, meeting in the state Capitol today, unanimously found that petition signatures seeking the recall of Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, both Republicans, met the legal standard to force an election Walker, whose opposition to unions touched off public fury, may become the third U.S. governor to be removed from office."
News Ledes
New York Times: "President Obama has determined there is enough oil in world markets to allow countries to rely less on imports from Iran, a step that could increase Western actions to deter Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, an administration official said Friday."
New York Times: "Eight days after the police shot dead the self-confessed killer of four Jews and three French paratroopers in southwestern France, elite units on Friday raided localities in several parts of the country and detained 17 people described as Islamic militants."
Washington Post: "European finance ministers agreed Friday to bolster the total capacity of their bailout funds to nearly $1 trillion, a temporary measure that aims to convince investors that they are serious about continuing to help struggling countries repay their debts."
New York Times: "Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin on Friday endorsed the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney, saying Republicans do not have the luxury of waiting until the party’s convention this summer to rally behind a nominee and start confronting President Obama."
AP: "The U.S. ambassador to Russia is perplexed over how a government-controlled television station seems to know his every move and concerned that his email and phone calls may be intercepted. In a series of tweets on Thursday, Michael McFaul said he encounters crews from the NTV channel wherever he goes."
Guardian: "A man who says he saw Trayvon Martin shot dead claims that the Florida teenager and his killer, George Zimmerman, were scuffling on the ground at the time with one on top of the other.... The anonymous man said he reported to police details of what he saw on the evening of 26 February, which included watching the gunman walking away from the fight apparently uninjured." Video of the interview, with CNN's Anderson Cooper, is here.
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Reader Comments (11)
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/trayvon-martin-gun-control-7698424
Pierce gets to the heart of it.
What I wonder is how the NRA/Alec legislation that pines for the wild west contributes to the Police militarization that in turn cracks down on dissent. Occupy anyone?
Furthermore how long before dueling is back in fashion?
I have mixed feelings about the Supreme decision on Obamacare. While I would hope, with no chance, that the justices would provide justice instead of politics, the fact is Obamacare sucks. Basically it supports the fundamental problem with healthcare in America. Money, money and more money. Living vs. dying, health vs. suffering are not about money. They are basic human rights. There is no moral method for providing care that is based on business as usual. Having proper care by an insurance company or a physician where the decision is the determinate of income is beyond unethical. I find it interesting that it is against the rules to do research with a patient if you have a financial interest in the supporting company. However if you are the treating doctor, it is perfectly OK to make money based on your decisions.
One way or the other, the US healthcare system is going to financially collapse. It is becoming overcome by greed. The cost is not just the economy, it is the loss of countless lives.
There is only one answer, single payer, i.e. the government. And the payer has to pay the salaries of all healthcare providers. I know, its socialism. Well if it is, then your public school teachers, firefighters and police have to go to private firms. No, the core basis of government is not socialism and there is nothing more core than protecting your life whether it is done by your local cop, fireman or physician. First do no harm.
@Marvin Schwalb. While I agree with you in principle, the problem is that, given the makeup of the Congress -- now and in the foreseeable future -- single-payer insurance is not going to happen. The ACA is a big, sloppy mess because it is a compromise between what we have & what the Congress was willing to pass -- by one or two votes in both Houses.
If I thought a ruling by the Supremes against the ACA would cause a groundswell of support for single-payer, I'd be with you. But it won't. The public is too brainwashed against its own best interests to demand universal coverage. Even if you called it "Medicare for All" -- something even the knuckledraggers might initially go for -- special interests would quickly think up ways to turn their heads: death panels, socialism, depriving you of your "freedoms," taking money from white people to give it to blah people, whatever.
Marie, I know single payer will not happen soon given the corruption of Congress. But it will happen because the existing system is going to collapse. The costs are going to consume the economy, the dead are going to pile up so high it will be impossible for even the guy who wants the government to stay away from his Medicare not to notice. The pain is going to affect the tea party idiots as much as anyone else. Hospitals are closing all over the place. You are going to wait six months to see an internist. Of course if you need surgery, you can choose from the long list of local surgeons. Businesses that provide insurance for employees are going to stop or go out of business altogether. Remember that about 17% of everything you spend money on goes to 'healthcare'. Soon it will be 25%. We are pushing for more transplant donors. That's great but if we succeed, who is going to pay the $700,000 for each new heart. Of course for kidneys we can save money since the annual cost of dialysis is about $50,000 and the after transplant drugs only cost about $17,000. Anyone ever notice these numbers?
The system is out of control. First, make money.
Speaking of death and health, the NRA needs to reign in their superiority and do some dying themselves. No amount of shootings, deaths, injuries, etc. has lessened their clout; none of these outrages have changed our gun laws. I wonder if someday, an enraged citizen, pissed off at the politics of, lets say, democrats, opens fire on a whole slew of them –––goes off his chump and lets it rip. Maybe kills their wives and children. What then? Would that do it, do you think? what kind of massacre would be necessary?
Politicization of the Supreme Court and the Broccoli Argument.
The left, back in the 60s, may have started the craze for condensing ideological statements of principle and purpose to phrases short enough to fit on a bumper sticker or poster, but the hate filled, delusional, post-factual fantasy world currently inhabited by the contemporary right-wing has entirely replaced reasoned argument and rational discourse on every major issue concerning the nation with shrill bumper sticker slogans.
Annoy a liberal. Love America
Gun Control is hitting your target.
Don’t blame me. I didn’t vote for the Kenyan.
Keep working. Millions of lazy people need your money.
I’ll keep my guns, freedom, and money. You keep the change.
If guns kill people do pencils misspell words?
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
No one owes you crap.
Sure I’m for abortion. Abort all liberals.
If you’re going to burn my flag at least wrap yourself in it first.
If you can’t speak the language, get the hell out my country.
You get the idea. The goal of bumper sticker ideology used in place of reasoned argument is to dispense with argument altogether. The goal of the spouters of ideological slogans, like the way Limbaugh refers to women as “feminazis”, is to ensure that the outcome of any contentious issue is a foregone conclusion. Your side wins. Period. There is no back and forth, no need to convince someone of the strength or correctness of your position. If your starting point is “I’m right and you’re wrong” the rest is nothing more than a cheap, crude insult.
Bumper sticker thinking like “We’ll all be forced to buy broccoli” is the cheapest and sleaziest form of civic engagement. But its appeal to the right is undeniable. There’s no need to defend the most outrageous and extremist positions, no need to argue from a point of fairness, no need for fairness at all. In fact, no need for any kind of argument period. Another benefit of bumper sticker assertions is the one-way nature of that type of communication. There IS no back and forth. It’s just your side making a broad, nearly always unsupported—and unsupportable--illogical, and fact free statement. The logical fallacies abound along with a raft of implied assumptions none of which are ever allowed to be questioned. Like shouting “You Lie.” Saying that you didn’t vote for the Kenyan makes it clear that there is no argument that Obama is not an American citizen, asserting that your love for America will annoy liberals makes it clear, from your point of view, that liberals hate America, and let’s not even get into the slogans that state outright that the death of those you consider your enemy is a perfectly reasonable and acceptable outcome. An additional benefit of a bumper sticker assertion is that you don’t have to give a rat’s ass what the other side has to say. Their point of view simply doesn’t count. Only your side has value.
But for Supreme Court justices to descend to the level of “when did you stop beating your wife” sorts of logic for deciding questions of great moment serves notice on all of us that the right has zero interest in serious debate of the great questions before us. Ergo the Paul Ryan budget. And, in a few months, the Supreme Court’s evisceration of not just health care, but hope for a decent life, for millions of Americans.
In fact, most of the opinions of the conservative justices over the last decade or so can be fit on a bumper sticker:
“If you’re not rich, if you’re not white, if you’re not Republican, you’re nothing.”
Substituting a bumper sticker slogan about broccoli for real debate and rational engagement is the apotheosis of the intellectual standards adhered to by the right-wing. It debases us all. Back in the 60s a popular slogan was “Question Authority.” Today’s right-wing would likely change this to read: “Assert Authority. Waterboard the Questioners.”
It strikes me that the Affordable Care Act is a very reasonable compromise between what we had prior to its passage and a single payer system.
Unfortunately, I think that the proponents of the ACA did a really bad job of selling its concepts to the public at large. Had someone stood up and simply said:
"No one likes: it when someone is denied coverage for pre-existing conditions; not being able to change jobs for fear of not getting health insurance; living with the fear of hitting a life-time cap; or living with the fear of their insurance not being excepted. The ACA makes a serious attempt to solve these problems. The downside, if you can even call it a downside, is everyone has to purchase health insurance or face paying a penalty."
While debating the bill, and since it's passage, everything I read and hear always talks about this or that aspect. No one ties it together in a neat bumper-stick like package.
The electorate a large (unfortunately), I think, would be far more supportive of it, if it were fed to them this way.
Akhileus: Thank you for one fantastic post. Your point is cogent and your logic impeccable.
I would like to say one other thing about the tenor of the comments from Justice Scalia in particular: by slamming the Solicitor General with ridicule, and yes, right-wing bumper sticker talking points, Scalia wasn't just being unprofessional. He was intentionally aimng to put Verrilli off balance and undermine his credibility in the bargain. Scalia was tipping the scales of justice, as it were.
One would expect this kind of bullying behavior from a teen in a locker room, but one would hope for a higher degree of decorum from a Supreme Court justice.
@Karl Thompson. I agree that Democrats did a lousy job of countering the "death panels" charges and all the other stuff, and once they got the bill passed, I think they thought they could sorta forget about it. So they did. Moreover, it's hard to fit a 2,700-page law on a bumper sticker.
@Akhilleus complains about the bumper-sticker mentality on the right, and I don't disagree. But when it comes to philosophical matters, most people -- whatever their politics -- think in terms of bumper stickers. The other day I heard Tracy Martin, the father of Trayvon, say something like, "This is supposed to be a country of freedom." I don't know what Martin's politics are, but he probably isn't president of the Nino Scalia Fan Club. People just think in terms of short-hand slogans, slogans that often mean different things to different people. The Liptak article (linked above) about Anthony Kennedy is a good illustration: Kennedy makes "liberty" the cornerstone of his legal philosophy, but even he doesn't quite know what that means.
So my advice to Democrats and liberals is to start cooking up some appealing bumper-sticker slogans.
@Akhilleus: Chris Mooney has a piece in Mother Jones that addresses your concerns––OUR concerns I should say. Here's the link:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/chris-mooney-republican-brain-science-denial
Marie,
I do agree with you that many (probably most) think in a kind of bumper sticker mentality. It becomes most unfortunate when those who are paid NOT to do that, not only succumb to it, but create their own bumper stickers.
If only we could inveigle the Supreme Con(servative) Men with some kind of equally vapid bumper sticker philosophical conundrum like "Everything I say is a lie" and see if that can apply a full nelson to their brain stems just long enough to restrict their knee-jerk "All Conservative Arguments WIN" response during the voting. Since voting took place today, I'm afraid this is just another great idea shot all to hell.
Oh, and the Liptak article has aroused another long simmering idea about how we understand (or not) various important concepts in this country, but I'll bore you with that diatribe at a later time.