Blog Archive: June, 2012

The student loan deal is badly needed. It should have just been extended - duh! But the 1 percenters took it hostage and demanded their pound of flesh before We, the People can preserve even this little bit of what we do for ourselves. So as part of the "sweetener" for those 1 percenters there is a corporate pension giveaway in the deal that has nothing to do with student loans. more »

More »»

Economists Paul Krugman and Richard Layard, the latter of the London School of Economics, today posted a "Manifesto for Economic Sense" that lays out a sound framework for reviving the global economy. more »

More »»

The Supreme Court's narrow decision today that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional is a victory for all of us who defend the right of Americans to join together to impose new rules on the private health insurance industry—to require that they cover all applicants and not disqualify people with preexisting conditions. more »

More »»

In plain English, from Scotusblog:

Amy Howe: In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance.

However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters.

Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.

This is just the upshot. There's a lot in there that needs to be parsed by the legal beagles. More later as I read around the tubes.

Meanwhile, if you want to have some fun, watch Fox News this morning ... more »

More »»

MORNING MESSAGE: Leaving Us To The Mercy Of The Insurance Companies

more »

More »»

Bleeding heart liberal rag Forbes does some important journalism and investigates the Fast and Furious pseudo scandal. It turns out that the basic facts the wingnuts are presenting --- that the ATF was engaged in a gun-walking sting operation, is false. Well, waddaya know?

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to matter. The scandal has taken on a life of its own and it will, in my opinion, likely lead to the resignation of Eric Holder. It's just how these things work. (Look for a shift from the scandal itself to a Village-wide condemnation of "the handling" of the scandal.)

I had to laugh when I read this, though:

More »»

The hubby and I were channel surfing last night and ended up watching Frontline. The feature story was "Dollars and Dentists".

The more I watched, the more stomach churning it got. If the Supreme Court does a number on health care reform, this model could be waiting in the wings.

No wonder conservatives don’t have a plan to "replace" health care reform. They don’t need one. Private equity firms are already test driving a "market-based" solution.

More »»

When we had democracy, We, the People made the rules and we ran our country and our economy for our benefit. Now that we are a plutocracy things are different. The reason our elites are not doing anything to fix the economy is because from their viewpoint, things are just fine.

Merriam-Webster: more »

More »»

MORNING MESSAGE: 1M Jobs or 2M Layoffs?

more »

More »»

There are reports that Congress is at last about to reach a deal on a transportation bill, exactly 1,001 days after the expiration of the last transportation reauthorization bill that Congress passed. What's still unclear is what kind of deal this will be.

more »

More »»