Our very, very good pal Collegekay is joining in on the fundraising challenge – although if she wins it I suspect we’ll need to order quite a large consignment of smelling salts:
If you can help Collegekay’s efforts you can donate here
I hope you win. I think it would be great for someone here to win a meeting with PBO and FLOTUS. Unfortunately, even if I won, I would not be able to go, so I will do my best to help somebody else do so.
DOMESTIC DUTIES CALL…WILL BE BACK LATER TO CATCH UP…BLESSINGS ALL!…:) SO HAPPY…I KNOW THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLS ARE ANXIOUSLY AWAITING HIS ARRIVAL! IT’S A ‘YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH’ MOMENT!
We’re approaching the biggest fundraising deadline of this campaign so far.
Those watching what we do over the next four days will take it as a real sign of what we’ll be capable of when we meet an opponent in the general election.
Every time we’ve faced a challenge in this campaign, you have come through.
It’s the critical advantage we have over our opponents. We’re not taking money from Washington lobbyists, PACs, or special interests. I’m counting on you — and more than 1.5 million grassroots donors — to see us through November.
The first big test of 2012 is to finish this week strong.
Please donate $68 or more today, before the crucial deadline:
YES.WE.CAN…DO.(Much) More, Together – WE MUST!
YES.WE.CAN, Again…Obama/Biden 2012!
WE CAN’T/WE CAN’T GO BACK… So, LET’S STAY/REBUILD TOGETHER 2012 & BEYOND! 😉
PRESS ON!
Hey guys, posted on the last thread that I had to run out to a doctor’s appointment, so I’m late saying thank you so much for the birthday wishes. I’m still dancing. Can’t think of another group I’d want to celebrate with than my TOD family. You guys are wonderful.
And this great internet ad from 2008 is perfect to get us moving and inspired. It also shows how much more interesting
Politics would be on TV if was done in musicals.
Happy Birthday Proudofobama. May you be blessed with many many more.
Yippee for Collegekay! She is half way to her goal but I’m sure we can push her wayyyyy past that initial goal. You go girl!!!!
Then, when you hear on your phone those magical words….”Hold For The President”, you can use that truckload of smelling salts that Chips has in route for you to stay conscience until you hear “Hi CollegeKay this is Barack” and then you will faint anyway!!! 😯
Too early to pop champagne, but we MAY have Justice Roberts on our side. From TPM:
In a little-noticed exchange Monday, conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts may have tipped his hand that he’s entertaining the possibility that the health care law’s individual mandate can be upheld on a constitutional basis that’s different from the one supporters and opponents have made central to their arguments.
For over a year now, observers and experts have assumed that the court’s final decision will hinge on the extent of Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. But the justices could also upend that conventional wisdom, and in a worrying sign for the plaintiffs on Monday, Roberts unexpectedly highlighted one way they could do that.
In an exchange with a plaintiffs attorney, Roberts suggested he’s skeptical that the mandate and its penalties can be treated separately and may have opened the door to finding that Congress’ power to impose the mandate springs from its broad taxing power.
“The idea that the mandate is something separate from whether you want to call it a penalty or tax just doesn’t seem to make much sense,” Roberts said, over strong objections from attorney Gregory Katsas. “It’s a command. A mandate is a command. If there is nothing behind the command, it’s sort of, well what happens if you don’t file the mandate? And the answer is nothing. It seems very artificial to separate the punishment from the crime. … Why would you have a requirement that is completely toothless? You know, buy insurance or else. Or else what? Or else nothing.”
TPM is the only one finding hope today. Almost all of the legal eagles following this thing today are saying the the conservative justices are skewering the mandate. Toobin flat out says it looks like the law is going to be struck down.
Kennedy seems to not care about the consequences of his actions and usually slides right.
I’m not happy with what i’ve been reading concerning today’s proceedings.
Here’s why I think the Supremes won’t open this can of highly political whoop-ass: some of the same SOS’es and Governors bringing the case are busily enacting mandates of their own. For example how can VA’s SOS Ken Cuchinelli (sp) bring a case against the unconstitutionality of the healthcare mandate while VA is busy creating their own mandate that women MUST PAY for a medically unnecessary sonogram? Here, in FL, it’s my understanding that the unemployed are MANDATED that they pay for their own drug tests?
Let’s face it, this whole mandate b.s. is purely political and the conservative justices would find it difficult to go against the tenet of personal responsibility which is central to their ideology.
Dear pamela, I’m afraid you’re wrong. A state’s right is different from a federal right. That’s what the entire thing hinges on.
These conservative ‘youngsters’ on the SC cut their teeth as lawyers looking for ways to undo the New Deal, and if the crazy RW logic is upheld, you will see a rash of lawsuits using this precedent against damn near everything the federal government does in modern times. They will keep their powder dry until after the election but we have every reason to be very concerned.
When the law was crafted in the early days of the PBO presidency, he had a belief that reason and precedent would be upheld by this SC. I am losing faith that this will be true.
Well, my Dear, I’ve been wrong before but we all know how “flexible” (heh) the repubs are when it comes to “states rights”. The states are used as stepping stones to either promote their agenda or thwarting ours with the end goal to making it federal. The “commerce clause” has been used to uphold the idea of a cohesive UNITED States of America, as opposed to a loose confederation of states at odds with one another.
As I originally stated, overturning the mandate opens a whole can of whoop-ass hurt.
I’m afraid the only constant Republicans have is that they’re in favor of anything that hurts PBO.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Democrats were the bleeding heart libruls who wanted to give everything away for free to all the loafers and accept no personal responsibility. The only answer was the free market and a mandate, when it came to health care reform.
You would think the idiots out there protesting would have a memory that goes back more than a day and half. No such luck, now personal responsibility is anathema to ‘freedom’. Everything turned on its head.
Good Morning, Welcome back, Chips. The president’s friend, Dmitriv, had some advice for Mittens heh
(Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday a comment by U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, branding Russia the “number one geopolitical foe”, smacked of Hollywood.
“Regarding ideological clichés, every time this or that side uses phrases like ‘enemy number one’, this always alarms me, this smells of Hollywood and certain times (of the past),” Medvedev said at the end of a nuclear security summit in the South Korean capital.
“I would recommend all U.S. presidential candidates … to do two things. First, when phrasing their position one needs to use one’s head, one’s good reason, which would not do harm to a presidential candidate.
“Also, (one needs to) look at his watch: we are in 2012 and not the mid-1970s.”
Mittens should be extremely embarrassed by this gaffe, but he won’t be. He never admits he’s made a mistake. Also, Boehner, piled on by saying that Mitt was wrong to criticize the president while he was overseas at a conference. He gets a point for that!
The lawsuits to nullify the Affordable Care Act, say conservatives, are about far more than mere health care. They represent a last chance to establish a Constitutional basis for freedom itself. Regulating inactivity “would expand the federal government’s authority over individual Americans to an unprecedented degree,” wrote a pair of Republican lawyers in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that helped launch the legal challenge. A National Review editorial declares, “a federal mandate would expand federal powers still further, and in a way that does not admit of any principled limit.” Right-wing members of Congress, intellectuals, and even legal opinions have buzzed with fearful predictions of a future in which the federal government forces Americans to eat broccoli or buy G.M. cars.
It has been remarkable to watch an entirely new conceptualization of freedom arise from thin air so quickly.
I’m not liking the sound of the report by Pete Williams on msnbc just now on the proceedings at the SC. He said Scalia’s questions re. govt’s case were openly hostile, when he had been supportive of fed’s power in past. Not really surprising, but the more worrisome comment was that Kennedy, the supposed “swing vote” was also hostile. Williams said if he had to predict right now, he would predict the health care law was in trouble.
Dotster, I would really urge you to not heed stuff that comes from the MSM regarding the ACA. It is expected that they would say things like that – it gets people riled up and translates into ratings. It also helps to advance GOP propaganda and depress Democrats.
Meanwhile, I say good for Pete williams and msnbc. I’m sure he’s predicted many negative things for President Obama based on bits and pieces of scattered information. An example would be that PBO would not get elected President in 2008, or that HCR would not even have passed. How many of those “predictions” came to pass? ZERO.
The President just came off of a very successful overseas trip, so time for another “Obama is DOOMED” story. If you look back over the last 4 years it’s a very predictable pattern with the MSM. Because it can never be said enough, don’t fall for the okey-doke.
This is what we’re hearing from legal scholars, not just reporters. We can stay hopeful but we have to be aware of what actually happened today. If Kennedy was hostile then we’re in serious trouble.
I’m following this pretty closely and I’m making it a point to not follow the pack and keep an open mind. I’m no lawyer but I’ve been a paralegal and I understand some of this. Unfortunately with these Republicans and this SC, law and the reputation of the courts has nothing to do with it. It is all political. The sinking pit in my stomach (and you, hopefruit, are going to HATE this) is that because the administration did not do a good enough job at selling and explaining this bill, there won’t be as big an outcry as there would have been. There are way too many Americans who still don’t understand the advantages of the bill and who really don’t understand how the mandate is important to its success. It’s a complete head scratcher to me.
Williams now joined by another sup. ct. expert and both agree that ct. is “on the edge of saying law is unconstitutional”. They both only see 4 votes in support, no 5th vote. It sounds like it got so ridiculous that Scalia was asking if the govt. could require people to eat broccoli, and other such nonsense.
dotster3, don’t worry yourself. If I was you I would not listen to these people like Pete Williams . We don’t know what will happen, all we can do is pray the right thing is done.
I knew somebody in the ’90s who knew him, and said he was a total chauvinist, when he was spokesman at the Pentagon. Saw the women professionals around him practically as people who’d “get him coffee.” I always think of that, when I see him. Turd. Yuck.
Please guys, I know we want to believe the best and until there’s a decision there’s always hope. But damn near universally from experts today, this does not look good.
Stop watching the reports on it. The MSM is doing its best to create as much drama as they can around this case. Stop watching this show that they are putting on.
I was listening to NPR and an observer stated how they (Scalia and Kennedy) were grilling the Solicitor General (I think) on whether this mandate wouldn’t be overstating government control (my words), and Roberts went on with the “broccolis” metaphor. The observer said she did not see a sign that either of the conservatives would move for the law. The interviewer finished with it doesn’t look good for the ACA at this point. This is why I must ask any of us who are “prayers” and those who choose to send up positive thoughts and hopes, do this for PBO. Put your own inclinations aside for one day, atleast, and consider how a loss would embolden those who oppose PBO to the depths of hell, would have the chance to dance on our heads——if the law goes down. Nothing more we can do. Just my positive 2 cents.
Please stop with the doom and gloom. yesterday Roberts was “tipping his hand” for ACA. Today it’s doooooooomed! Tomorrow, Thomas will sneeze and that will have some profound meaning. They will make a decision in MaY or June.
I understand they have to go through the calisthenics of hearings and such, and I don’t exactly admit doom. My suggestion really is that at this point, there is nothing any of us supporters can do but think and pray up the positive. Thus my “positive 2 cents”.
I agree, Debz. The MSM are in the business of creating drama and their own narrative. Robert’s questions were nothing but playing the “Devil’s Advocate” so that the Solicitor General must support his claims. Nothing new here.
I THINK THAT WE COULD DRIVE OURSELVES NUTS…LISTENING TO THE DIRE PREDICITONS OF THE MAINSTREAM PRESS…WE WILL HAVE TO REMAIN HOPEFUL AND POSITIVE…AND SUPPORTIVE…
…pRESSSSSSSSSS on
Welp, ignore my rosiness from a few minutes ago. Just read the report from TPM. Heaven forbid we have a national health care system like every single other advanced economy.
Yes, it looks like it is the consensus of all reporters and legal experts that were in attendance today that the law is in “grave trouble”.
This is a revolting development——sounds like politics is definitely in play.
I’m sharing Smartypants viewpoint from yesterday re the ACA, the media and the ‘final’ outcome. It’s worth a (re)read IMO. It can be easily accessed from the link to the right but I copied the link here anyway.
“I suspect that the political news this week will be consumed by the debate at the Supreme Court about health care reform. Its probably a good thing that we get it all out now – but frankly, I’m not looking forward to the spin that is sure to ensue. The reality is that the real news won’t happen for months…the actual ruling from SCOTUS. And in the meantime, the pundits will have a heyday predicting the outcome and spinning those meaningless predictions ad infinitum.
So I’ve hesitated to read much in the lead-up because it will all be a test of mental gymnastics for awhile now and I simply am not up for the hysteria.”
I love smartypants but I simply cannot follow this logic: ignore what’s happening until the decision happens? I understand ignoring the hyper-ventillating big-mouth press, but actual reports about the proceedings are important for me to make a personal assessment.
57F, I’m not sure if you read the entire post, but I not only found it quite informative in a ‘simplified’ way, I didn’t really conclude that she was advocating that we ignore what is happening vis a vis the actual debates. I concluded that SP planned to ignore the pseudo predictions and the hysteria they generate, and I agree with her. It never fails that in a large community such as ours there will be those who enjoy roller coaster rides as well as those who prefer to just go slowly around the train tracks, and of course those who fall in between. . I’m a train track type, so I shared this now because I felt that the ‘hysteria’ was starting to build here and in a way it seemed pointless, as nothing will be definitive until much later. I was saying to other ‘train track’ types a)not to get caught in the hype and get their blood pressure up, I guess, and b) we are not alone. Just my take. Like you, I do believe that ‘ACTUAL REPORTS about the proceedings are important’, personal interpretations, not so much.
Toobin: ‘This Law Looks Like It’s Going To Be Struck Down’
CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, following Supreme Court arguments on President Obama’s health care law, said on CNN that based on what he heard inside the Court, things didn’t look good for proponents of the law.
“This was a train wreck for the Obama administration,” he said. “This law looks like it’s going to be struck down. I’m telling you, all of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong… if I had to bet today I would bet that this court is going to strike down the individual mandate.”
Toobin added that he felt that U.S. Solicitor General David Verrilli simply wasn’t prepared for the conservative justices.
“I don’t know why he had a bad day,” he said. “He is a good lawyer, he was a perfectly fine lawyer in the really sort of tangential argument yesterday. He was not ready for the answers for the conservative justices.”
Toobin also said he thought Justice Kennedy, the perennial swing vote, was a “lost cause” for supporters of the health care reform law.
See what I mean? Toobin fanning the flames based one day of some tough question. He’s trying to give the impression that Verrilli’s response to everything was the dog ate my homework. This thing just started yesterday. We got a ways to go.
Different issues are argued on different days. When you hear the questions asked by the justices, there is no excuse for Vermilli to be unprepared to answer effectively. They didn’t throw curveballs — the questions were completely predictable. No one, even staunch supporters of the law who are writing today, think he did a good job. And yes, today is immensely important on its own.
Toobin is a disaster. Isn’t he the same guy who said Justice Sotomayor was completely unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice, and he’s spent several nights with Keith Olbermann (when he was back on MSNBC, I don’t want Current) criticizing the President on every little topic. I don’t know how he has any credibility.
iPads, Laptops Stolen From Romney Aides’ SUV
Stolen Items May Have Valuable Information For Opponents Of GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney http://www.10news.com/news/30767730/detail.html
Okay, okay, let’s not panic yet—and that includes myself. From TPM’s David Kurtz:
I just instant messaged briefly with Sahil Kaupr, our reporter on the scene, and he was more circumspect than Toobin, agreeing that the administration was subject to tough questioning, but noting that a clear majority bloc has not emerged yet to strike down the law.
The drafters of the Constitution made many mistakes. Keeping slavery was the gravest. But I think following that in a close second was lifetime tenure for federal judges, including SCOTUS justices.
Agree about the mistakes, and I will try to not jump to conclusions also, but almost all the reports have been alarming—in fact, all except this exchange with TPM’s Kaupr.
I just don’t trust this Sup. Ct. As Josh Marshall tweeted, Bush v. Gore 2.0?
What infuriates me to no end is that getting something done in this country for the common good gets blowback from people who will be helped by the new law. No, Justice Scalia, the Obama Administration isn’t telling citizens to eat broccoli; it just wants to make sure that the country doesn’t bankrupt itself with health costs. Asswipe.
One day of tough questioning in March does not decide how the court will rule in June. Slow down. This may go back and forth for awhile.
And of course the reports are alarming. You know that’s how the media deals with this President. Open mic ring a bell? I know we all want to stay up to date on what’s going on but don’t let these hacks make you crazy.
“Monday’s campaign news cycle was all about “bullshit”-gate, a controversy over an outburst Santorum made at a New York Times reporter. Cursing at a journalist on camera ensured that the spat became the news, rather than any serious discussion of his viability as a candidate. It also gave critics an easy target for a candidate who espouses conservative family values as a cornerstone of his campaign.
And “bullshit”-gate wasn’t even the biggest gaffe Santorum made since winning the primary.
That came in a Monday in which Santorum turned in his flamethrower badge and effectively gave up his role as anti-Romney insurgent. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Santorum said he’d be comfortable running as Romney’s running mate.
“I’ll do whatever is necessary to help our country,” Santorum said when asked if he’d consider joining a Romney ticket.”
Well, I’ve just finished talking to the HHS Human Resources department about my application to CDC and it looks like I did not get the job I applied for. From the statement I got from the HR Specialist, I wasn’t considered for the position. They rank you based solely on your answers to the online questionnaire in comparison to the resume you post on USAJOBS.gov. Based on an algorithm used for Federal job applicants to weaning out qualified applicants for positions, they rank you on a scale of 100%. For the job I applied for, my ranking was 89%. The HR Specialist said that I was considered a “well-qualified” applicant, but based on my score, I wasn’t the “best-qualified” applicant (i.e. >95%) for the position.
So that’s that then. I think I’m gonna spend the rest of the summer saving some money and deciding what my next journey will be.
lamh35, my suggestion, as former govt employee, is, if you really really really want to work at the CDC, apply for every job that you qualify for, whether or not you really want it. It’s much easier to get a job in government, when you are already in the department where you want to be. Also, you may find that your ‘dream job’ isn’t really the job you thought it was. Or you may find out that it’s EXACTLY what you want. If you are “in” the system, you have a better shot of getting the gig. Just my $.02. Peace on your journey
Good on ya, lamh35. Even if you have to take an interim job, doesn’t mean that if you’re relentless in your goal that you will (eventually) obtain it. Prayers and a protective light to you, Dear Lamh.
Aww, that bites lamh. I know a couple of people who’ve had similar difficulties getting into the CDC. Try the the private route, if you can. Lots of biotech-related stuff going on in Georgia. Check out this list of companies on the download page here:
SCOTUS Citizens United decision is, as all of you know, among the very worst.
For SCOTUS to disrupt #ObamaCares would have enormous and rapid negative consequences to both SCOTUS and the Party of Koch & Norquist (PKN – former GOP).
The PKN has already solidified women, Hispanics, AAs, unions, LGBTs and thinking people against them.
Enabling President Obama to run a campaign in which he can excoriate the PKN & SCOTUS for both the vastly undemocratic consequences of Citizens United and the harm disrupting #ObamaCares would do to countless Americans – well, as orchestrated by our brilliant President – you will in_deed witness #LandslideOBAMA & #LandslideDEMS on 6 Nov 2012.
And, in 2013 you will see legislation to make Medicare available to every US citizen and it will pass. And, in 2013 you will see Citizens United overturned by Congress.
God Bob, I hope you’re right. I’m just livid right now that all these forces are arrayed against a piece of legislation that HELPS PEOPLE. I write the best when I’m in a rage, so something’s bubbling up for a TPV piece.
Go for it, LL. Really respect your writing and that you TPV as a venue to share it with others.
It’s a lose-lose for the #KOCHSTERS on SCOTUS – they harm ACA, they harm millions of Americans and #PresObama will make them regret it forever; they rule ACA is Constitutional, well the #teabagger, Bircher minions of Koch and clan will not treat them well.
Bob, President Obama made some enemies on the court during his SOTU address when he called them out about the Citizens United decision. They just might want to teach this black man a lesson.
Personally, I have never had any faith in those justices. I have no idea how this will all turn out and none of us do but based on the history of this court (Citizens United and Gore v Bush) I know how these major cases generally are decided. Justice Kenney the supposedly “swing vote” generally sides with the conservatives. I cannot think of one case in recent history (the last 10 years) where he had sided with the more liberal or moderate justices.
We can have the most brilliant attorneys in the world on our side and if this conservative court wants to go in a certain direction on the law they will.
This is why elections matter so when our liberal/progressive friends tell us when speaking about politicians and lumping them all together and then they say, “they are all the same so it doesn’t make a difference who we vote for” remind them of the Supreme Court and the profound affect that their decisions have on our daily lives.
I believe that a win will confirm the President’s decision on ACA but I believe it will rally the Right (to no avail) and if god-forbid we lose this case it will be a tremendous boost and rally cry for our side.
If the case is lost, then I believe it’s too much to expect a human being to put their neck on the line again to try and pass something so significant that was spit on by so many. I’m sure the President would do it because he believes so strongly in health security, but it’s not entirely clear that many of the cowards in Congress – especially those who refused to tout the benefits of the bill in 2010 – would stand up for another battle.
The fact that this case is even legitimately being debated in the Supreme Court right now is an extreme embarrassment for this country. And the fact that there are people praying against the law in front of the Supreme Court is extremely frightening. It’s evil.
Forget precedent. Ignore Scalia’s musings. Next week’s health care argument before the Supreme Court is all about optics, politics, and public opinion.
By Dahlia Lithwick (3/22/12)
============================
The first proposition is that the health care law is constitutional. The second is that the court could strike it down anyway. Linda Greenhouse makes the first point more eloquently than I can. That the law is constitutional is best illustrated by the fact that—until recently—the Obama administration expended almost no energy defending it. Back when the bill passed Nancy Pelosi famously reacted to questions about its constitutionality with the words, “Are you serious?” And the fact that the Obama administration rushed the case to the Supreme Court in an election year is all the evidence you need to understand that they remain confident in their prospects. The law is a completely valid exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause power, and all the conservative longing for the good old days of the pre-New Deal courts won’t put us back in those days as if by magic. Nor does it amount to much of an argument.
So that brings us to the really interesting question: Will the Court’s five conservatives strike it down regardless? That’s what we’re really talking about next week and that has almost nothing to do with law and everything to do with optics, politics, and public opinion.
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Uhhhh I was listening to CNN and had to turn that shit off!!!! Dude was getting on like he has foresight or he’s freaking Jesus Christ!!!! This is ridiculous!!!!
Good afternoon y’all. I dug up the following bit for some of us that are old enough to remember. A little entertainment while we wait for the black robes to justify their existence.
Subject: Older Than Dirt
THOUGHT YOU MIGHT ENJOY THIS:
‘Someone asked the other day, ‘What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?’
‘We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,’ I informed him..
‘All the food was slow.’
‘C’mon, seriously. Where did you eat?’
‘It was a place called ‘at home,” I explained. !
‘Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it..’
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it :
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.
In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck.
Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.
My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow)
We didn’t have a television in our house until I was 19.
It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a..m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.
I was 21 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called ‘pizza pie.’
When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It’s still the best pizza I ever had..
I never had a telephone in my room.
The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line..
Pizzas were not delivered to our home But milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers –my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6AM every morning.
On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren Just don’t blame me if they bust a gut laughing.
Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?
MEMORIES from a friend :
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother’s house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it.. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea.. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to ‘sprinkle’ clothes with because we didn’t have steam irons. Man, I am old.
How many do you remember?
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Older Than Dirt Quiz :
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about.
Ratings at the bottom.
1.. Blackjack chewing gum
2.Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines on the telephone
8 Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11.. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels [if you were fortunate])
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S& H greenstamps
16.. Hi-fi’s
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered 0-5 = You’re still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don’t tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You’ re older t han dirt!
I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Awww. I range in the 0-5 range :(. Wish I was in the era of “slow food” though….not only because nothing beat Granny’s cooking but because something about that lifetime sparks interest in me.
Me too. 66 this September and I remember them all. Especially picking up the phone and hearing someone on there. Had to listen to some gossip, couldn’t hang up right away. Sometimes you caught the voices sometimes you didn’t. Worked at the phone company on the old switchboard the ones that took up a whole room in a long line with wires to the front and back. Back for answering, front for sending calls. Good old days.
I’m definitely older than dirt! I will add “the back house” (that was the out door toilet) just for you younguns information. Also hand pumping water from the well. My Granny didn’t get indoor plumbing until I was about 7. That was the best, sweetest cold, well water on a hot day. I can still taste it. Best was making fresh peach ice cream on Granny’s patio with everyone taking a turn at the hand crank.
What I won’t treasure is doing laundry with the old wringer washer and ironing everything even the linen dish towels or doing dishes by hand for 12 people every day. Then there was canning, I don’t miss that either.
We have surely come from far. I moved into a new apartment and I h ave a nice new dishwasher. No more dipping your hand in greasy water. I would have killed for one of those had wringing washing machine. We used a scrub board and the wringer was your hand. As for that ice vream bucket it was hard to do but we took turns turning.
I’m in the 0-5 range. More like the zero. I don’t remember ANY of those items mentioned above. I’ve only heard vague stories. Some of those things existed? Wow.
Don’t worry You’ll have your own set of memories to look back on. I leave you with this that was given to me 60 years ago: “Think about where you’re going;but always remember where you’ve been.”
Is the health care market unique enough to warrant a government mandate to purchase health insurance? POLITICO’s Jason Millman flags Justice Anthony Kennedy — a key swing vote — leaning towards yes in Tuesday’s oral arguments, even as he has tough questions for the government:
JUSTICE KENNEDY: And the government tells us that’s because the insurance market is unique. And in the next case, it’ll say the next market is unique. But I think it is true that if most questions in life are matters of degree, in the insurance and health care world, both markets — stipulate two markets — the young person who is uninsured is uniquely proximately very close to affecting the rates of insurance and the costs of providing medical care in a way that is not true in other industries. That’s my concern in this case.
Okay, so where the hell did the doom and gloom come from? That seems like someone who’s leaning towards the government’s case. Is the media really that corrupt?
Didn’t I tell ya? The doom and gloom came from the usual suspects – Sam Stein of HuffnPuff; Ezra Klein; the Professional Left “Public option” hysteria freaks, The corporate media including MSNBC, CNN and their jerk-ass “legal analysts” and many others.
The members of our failed media experiment don’t care about ACA being repealed. They’ll still have their health care. They just want to gin up ratings. Quite frankly, they disgust me.
Not sure what you’re getting at but she is on our side. Just click on her name and look at her timeline.
She’s making a statement about the pitiful Alito falling asleep during oral arguments.
If she’s on our side then she’s being careless with those tweets. The fact that Alito is falling asleep doesn’t mean a damn thing. She’s feeding into the hysteria by giving a ball-by-ball report along with her interpretation of every bodily twitch of the panel. I don’t think that’s helping our cause.
Another thing – the fact that someone has the title of “lawyer” does not mean they’re anything other than a 1st-class dolt. Just ask Rick Santorum, the lawyer.
I added that she’s a lawyer because she is fighting for ACA and understands the legal jargon in a way that perhaps I do not. Nothing more, nothing less.
Okay then. But her tweet about Alito falling asleep is not helpful at all. Even if someone is on our side they can and sometimes do get a bit ahead of themselves in feeding media hysteria and propaganda. Given the hysteria that already exists because of what the media just put out, she could have been a bit more restrained that regard. Just my 2 cents.
The disrespect that these neocon justices have for the office, is only exceeded by the disrespect that they have for the people of this country. Sickening….
Much of the commentary appears to be based on the questioning of the government’s position. There is some hope from some of the questions posed to the challengers’:
Justice Kennedy again jumps in with a comment that expresses some sympathy for the government. All citizens are in the market, he said, in the sense that they’re creating a risk that must be accounted for.
. . . .
Chief Justice Roberts speaks up with his first comments that appear to help the government. The chief said the key to the government’s argument is that everyone is in the health-care market, which makes this different than other products. All the government is trying to do, he said, is regulate how health care is paid for.
. . . .
Justice Kennedy, who had been critical of the government’s argument earlier in the day, for the first time jumps in to take issue with the challengers. He seems to bristle at the suggestion that young, healthy people without insurance are somehow beyond regulatory consideration. Such a person is “an actuarial reality who can and must be measured,” he said.
Why would young people be beyond regulatory consideration. My adult son’s new job would not pay for health insurance until the employee had been there 6 months. While my son was in his 3rd month on the job, he broke his finger playing basketball. His finger was broken in such a way that surgery was needed. The doctor had to put pins in his finger. Had my son not had the surgery his finger would be deformed for the rest of his life. Accidents happen. I don’t care how old you are. We paid for the surgery because I couldn’t bear the thought of my son having problems using his hand forever. There are plenty of young people who get cancer and any number of diseases. What is wrong with these people.
As Jon Chait explained, “The choice we face is not between Obamacare and some different, even more ‘market-friendly’ alternative reform. It’s between Obamacare and subjecting millions of Americans to the insecurity and suffering of lacking health insurance. The uninsured can have the Republicans’ answer now. Their offer is this: nothing.”
When the debate over health care reform got underway in earnest in 2009, Frank Luntz and other GOP pollsters/strategists warned the party that Americans expected improvements to the dysfunctional system, and Republicans couldn’t simply say “no” to everything.
Three years later, that’s effectively where the party has ended up: wanting to go back to the mess “Obamacare” is cleaning up.
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So what’s wrong with Obama’s approach of minimum standards to prevent this? For consumers and families, nothing. For conservatives, though, it means federal regulations, and we can’t have that because it would mean officials looking out for consumers, which is, you know, bad. Or something
We all have to breathe. I hope that the portions of the law being debated in front of the SC aren’t overturned, because too many people depend on the law. However, I think we all have an idea about how the ruling will be due to the makeup of the judges. Also, Clarence not asking questions is weird. I know back in 09′ it was reported that he went a ver long time not asking questions during hearings. There is no point for him to be there, and earn his salary, since he is not actually a participating judge.
Awww, I have a special place in my heart for Dr. Maddy (Former Sec of State Madeleine Albright). Always wished I could be her student. Got a campaign email from her today.
—————-
It seems every time women take one step forward, extremists try to push us back.
Here in America, Republicans have launched an all out attack on women’s rights. They’ve targeted women’s health care and are trying to roll back basic rights that most of us thought were won more than a generation ago.
My friend Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats are fighting back against the Republican attacks on women’s rights. And, they need your help.
They’ve set a goal of raising $2.5 million before the key end-of-quarter FEC deadline to show we will stand strong and united against the Republican attack on women’s rights.
Republicans are on the wrong side of history, once again.
Women will never go back to the days where we could not control our own reproductive health care decisions – and we will not remain silent in the face of vicious misogyny and anti-women hate speech.
But, one thing I’ve learned is that rights never stay won. Each generation must stand up and fight to hold accountable those who would try to take our rights away.
Please stand with me, Leader Pelosi and House Democrats today:
Maybe it’s because I just got done with Story Time and basking in the glow of my Story Time kids, but I’m a bit less panicky right now, especially after reading more reports that indicate that Kennedy and Roberts, though asking hard questions, seem to be favorable to the government’s argument. When I think of why I want this country to change the way it does things, I just picture my Tuesday morning crowd. They have to be left a better world than the one we have.
Part of the role of the justices is to grill both sides hard and challenge their arguments. If you listen to just a small portion, you will end up with only a partial view. Neither sets of questions, toward the government or the plaintiffs, will directly tell you which way they are leaning. I would be more interested in the tone of the questions and comments, rather than the words themselves. Not seeing much reporting on that aspect.
It’s okay and IMO we are entitled to feel passionately about this case. It will have a profound affect on each of us not just politically but personally as well. Our media will be ridiculous and unfortunately they are the source of news and we have to take everything they say with a grain of salt. It shouldn’t be that way but the days of Cronkite have long since past.
I agree, although there appears to be universal assessment that Verilli (our guy) ‘choked’ and Clement (their guy) did great. I won’t have a chance to listen to the oral arguments until later tonight to make my own judgment, but hearing something is not the same as seeing it.
It does appear that none of the questions should have been unanticipated by Verilli, which is why people are really unhappy with his performance.
Some of Roberts’ and Kennedy’s comments are encouraging, however.
And like Deaniac says, if the court votes to uphold the law but strike down the mandate, then private insurance will die a quick death. And as Bob says, if the entire law is stricken, then PBO and the Dems will roar fully on totally remaking health care by pushing for Medicare for all. Everyone loves Medicare. It would be a landslide.
Whoa. Let me read Deaniac before I respond in full, but the basic premise — without the mandate private insurance dies a quick death — I just don’t get that at all. Even if they are required to ‘offer’ insurance that covers pre-existing conditions, if there are no mechanisms for controlling the premiums, then can’t they charge anything they want and the public will indeed be ‘free’ to not have health care?
And if the SC determines that the mandate is not severable, isn’t there a chance the entire bill goes down in flames? There’s still the issue of the expansion of Medicaid as well.
Unfortunately, because of the poisonous political climate under which the bill had to be drafted, I don’t believe there is anything in this bill that guarantees health care to anybody, just a more effective mechanism for making it affordable through the private market, therefore it will be available to more Americans.
I’ve seen PBO work magic in turning around a narrative. I just wish he could have stood on the shoulders of a giant of his own making, with the majority of Americans understanding what groundbreaking legislation this is and how much the entire country will benefit from its implementation. He’s not starting from a position of strength if the mandate or any other portion of the bill is struck down.
The mandate is the thing that keeps down costs. Take the mandate out, and the whole structure crumbles. Will SCOTUS strike the mandate and keep the rest of the law? I don’t know. Right now I’m in a rage that something so commonsensical and beneficial to the majority of people in this country is under attack. I’m really close to hating a large segment of our population, and that’s not healthy.
Wait….I’m surfing the web and I’m seeing prominent news websites taking a spin on this Trayvon Martin travesty! They are now questioning whether a teenager who was armed only with skittles and ice tea could have initiated his death is infuriating me! First of all I’m already infuriated because Zimmerman is not arrested and the Stanford FL police did not conduct a proper police investigation at the night of the shooting!!! According to Zimmerman he was heading back to his vehicle when Trayvon approach him, a argument ensued, Trayvon punched him in the nose knocking him to the ground, jump on top of him and began beating his head against the pavement…nothing add up!!! Nothing adds up to the time Trayvon was on the phone with his girlfriend and the time the police arrived, nothing adds up to the 9 11 calls and the screaming indidvidual that immediately stopped screaming as soon as the gun shot went off and I could go on and on. But I would just like to say this to you all and you can give me and answer, If you identify a person as suspicious and that person comes up to you, you have a gun in your waist wouldn’t you pull out your gun immediately and point it to the suspicious indidvidual and say “step one step closer and I’ll blow your brains out!” ??? Now that reaction would of definitely scare off Trayvon simply because as stated in the police report he was unarmed!!!! An unarmed indidvidual would not try to fight someone with a gun it’s a natural thing!!
Secondly all these fools who are saying he’s a criminal just because they found marijuana residue on him or because he defaced school property or because on his twitter page he referred to himself with a racial slur then there are sooooooo many teenagers of all racial background that needs to be shot!….starting with the President of the United States. So many black rappers used the N-word to describe themselves and others. So many doctors, lawyers, News Presenters, Teacher, Entertainers etc were suspended during their school years for many different reasons. Teens makes mistakes for many different reasons but to deny them the opportunity to redeem themselves is outrageous!!!! This young man had NO CRIMINAL RECORDS….he may have not been a saint neither are YOU!!! He didn’t deserve to die that way and this Zimmerman idiot needs to be ARRESTED NOW!!!!!! I’m not appalled by this tragedy at all but I am outrage by the fact that despite public outcry nothing has been down more than a month later! SAD SAD SAD!!!!
Zimmerman is a killer. He gets to make up whatever he wants to because his victim is dead and cannot speak up to defend himself and now he’s trying to save his own ass. The media are doing this to stir up trouble. I’m white but I will tell you the truth. They want a violent reaction from black people. They want to provoke anger. They want it to become another source of division because they were scared that all DECENT people black and white were united in their sympathy for Trayvan and his family. All the teenage sons of my (white) friends have smoked dope. It shouldn’t be an issue.
I’m going to pray now. I’m pretty disgusted with the world.
Why the last hour of the Supreme Court argument over Obamacare matters most.
By Simon Lazarus
===============================
By the third day of Supreme Court arguments over the Affordable Care Act, people may be inclined to tune out. They shouldn’t. The final hour may be of far greater consequence than anything else the court hears this week. On Wednesday afternoon, the justices will vet a claim that targets the part of the new law that expands the Medicaid program. The Republican governors and attorneys general bringing the case against the health care law assert that the choice given states by the federal government—either accept coverage of approximately 16 million newly eligible beneficiaries or withdraw from Medicaid and lose all existing federal Medicaid funds—is “coercion.” Hence, they argue that with this provision, the federal government is unconstitutionally undermining state autonomy.
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Then again, the court will probably not relish the opportunity to risk disruption at all levels of government. No matter how much Clement and the challengers try to downplay it, the court’s conservatives know how much hinges on this last hour of argument. Let’s hope they rise above the temptations put before them.
NFIB said the argument against HCR went very good.
Justice Kennedy maybe the only hope. They seem to have had a pre conceived notion, before the arguments.
I donated a little collegekay. I am going to meditate and put out positive vibes and prayers for ACA to be upheld. Goodness knows it’s time we had this. I signed and tweeted the petition from the DCCC in support of Health Care Reform. Don’t know what else to do now but wait and pray.
The Obama Diary 
Go ck
Thank you so much Chips. words cannot explain my appreciation.
Thank you TOD family. Even if I don’t win… this is still all for pbo ❤ 🙂
I hope you win. I think it would be great for someone here to win a meeting with PBO and FLOTUS. Unfortunately, even if I won, I would not be able to go, so I will do my best to help somebody else do so.
Threw a few pennies in the bucket for you, ck.
Thank you for everything you do to help support our President.
I’m so proud of you!! 🙂
Good Luck!
Good west coast morning Chipsticks!
Way to go collegekay. I’ll do what I can to help you along 🙂
Congrats Dudette for landing First!
Happy 60th Birthday proudofobama!!!!!
Thanks GG! We have lots to celebrate today!! 😀
This is random but I hope their is a movement about the death of our young black and Hispanic men. The incarceration and murder rates are outrageous.
Totally agree. Hoping that the current uproar about Trayvon will keep going. We need to stop this, in our country.
Co-sign!!
DOMESTIC DUTIES CALL…WILL BE BACK LATER TO CATCH UP…BLESSINGS ALL!…:) SO HAPPY…I KNOW THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLS ARE ANXIOUSLY AWAITING HIS ARRIVAL! IT’S A ‘YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH’ MOMENT!
Well of course they did. One of their reps was standing right beside Jeb Bush when he signed the thing.
Rep. Dennis Baxley also authored bill to keep Terry Schiavo alive…
So the NRA are baby killers, but hay they don’t care.
Just got this email, so you can count me in 🙂
—
We’re approaching the biggest fundraising deadline of this campaign so far.
Those watching what we do over the next four days will take it as a real sign of what we’ll be capable of when we meet an opponent in the general election.
Every time we’ve faced a challenge in this campaign, you have come through.
It’s the critical advantage we have over our opponents. We’re not taking money from Washington lobbyists, PACs, or special interests. I’m counting on you — and more than 1.5 million grassroots donors — to see us through November.
The first big test of 2012 is to finish this week strong.
Please donate $68 or more today, before the crucial deadline:
Let’s use ProudofObama’s birthday as an opportunity to help the President.
We can donate as an online way of celebrating the TOD family B-Days.
Visit College Kay’s page, Donna’s page, or Chips donate button on the right side of the screen.
What a wonderful idea. I’m In!
Proud to wish you a Happy Birthday, Proud!
PoO,
Have a blessed and fun-filled HAPPY B-DAY! 🙂
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I’m IN!
Happy Birthday Proud! May you have a very joyus day!!!!!
WiW,
As always, you have great ideas/suggestions…
Done! 🙂
By the way, where’s meta’s page?
YES.WE.CAN…DO.(Much) More, Together – WE MUST!
YES.WE.CAN, Again…Obama/Biden 2012!
WE CAN’T/WE CAN’T GO BACK… So, LET’S STAY/REBUILD TOGETHER 2012 & BEYOND! 😉
PRESS ON!
Collegekay,
I hope my little bit helps you to win.
Hey guys, posted on the last thread that I had to run out to a doctor’s appointment, so I’m late saying thank you so much for the birthday wishes. I’m still dancing. Can’t think of another group I’d want to celebrate with than my TOD family. You guys are wonderful.
And this great internet ad from 2008 is perfect to get us moving and inspired. It also shows how much more interesting
Politics would be on TV if was done in musicals.
OMG! THIS IS FANTASTIC! I LOVE THIS! 😀
Somebody’s a big Les Miserables fan (as am I)!
McCain and Palin as the Thénardiers! Brilliant! LOL!!
CollegeKay: Bravo for all you do !!!
Happy Birthday Proudofobama. May you be blessed with many many more.
Yippee for Collegekay! She is half way to her goal but I’m sure we can push her wayyyyy past that initial goal. You go girl!!!!
Then, when you hear on your phone those magical words….”Hold For The President”, you can use that truckload of smelling salts that Chips has in route for you to stay conscience until you hear “Hi CollegeKay this is Barack” and then you will faint anyway!!! 😯
I’m sure you’ve relived “the moment,” scads of times, eh, Donna? Love thinking about that gift you got, myself! 🙂
Too early to pop champagne, but we MAY have Justice Roberts on our side. From TPM:
Full piece here: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/did-john-roberts-throw-a-wrench-in-major-argument-against-obamacare.php?ref=fpb
That was before today’s hearing…
I haven’t been following yet. How was today’s hearing?
I haven’t been following either, but according to dotster downthread, it’s not looking so good today.
TPM is the only one finding hope today. Almost all of the legal eagles following this thing today are saying the the conservative justices are skewering the mandate. Toobin flat out says it looks like the law is going to be struck down.
Kennedy seems to not care about the consequences of his actions and usually slides right.
I’m not happy with what i’ve been reading concerning today’s proceedings.
Here’s why I think the Supremes won’t open this can of highly political whoop-ass: some of the same SOS’es and Governors bringing the case are busily enacting mandates of their own. For example how can VA’s SOS Ken Cuchinelli (sp) bring a case against the unconstitutionality of the healthcare mandate while VA is busy creating their own mandate that women MUST PAY for a medically unnecessary sonogram? Here, in FL, it’s my understanding that the unemployed are MANDATED that they pay for their own drug tests?
Let’s face it, this whole mandate b.s. is purely political and the conservative justices would find it difficult to go against the tenet of personal responsibility which is central to their ideology.
Dear pamela, I’m afraid you’re wrong. A state’s right is different from a federal right. That’s what the entire thing hinges on.
These conservative ‘youngsters’ on the SC cut their teeth as lawyers looking for ways to undo the New Deal, and if the crazy RW logic is upheld, you will see a rash of lawsuits using this precedent against damn near everything the federal government does in modern times. They will keep their powder dry until after the election but we have every reason to be very concerned.
When the law was crafted in the early days of the PBO presidency, he had a belief that reason and precedent would be upheld by this SC. I am losing faith that this will be true.
Well, my Dear, I’ve been wrong before but we all know how “flexible” (heh) the repubs are when it comes to “states rights”. The states are used as stepping stones to either promote their agenda or thwarting ours with the end goal to making it federal. The “commerce clause” has been used to uphold the idea of a cohesive UNITED States of America, as opposed to a loose confederation of states at odds with one another.
As I originally stated, overturning the mandate opens a whole can of whoop-ass hurt.
I’m afraid the only constant Republicans have is that they’re in favor of anything that hurts PBO.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Democrats were the bleeding heart libruls who wanted to give everything away for free to all the loafers and accept no personal responsibility. The only answer was the free market and a mandate, when it came to health care reform.
You would think the idiots out there protesting would have a memory that goes back more than a day and half. No such luck, now personal responsibility is anathema to ‘freedom’. Everything turned on its head.
Un-freakin’-believable.
Good Morning, Welcome back, Chips. The president’s friend, Dmitriv, had some advice for Mittens heh
(Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday a comment by U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, branding Russia the “number one geopolitical foe”, smacked of Hollywood.
“Regarding ideological clichés, every time this or that side uses phrases like ‘enemy number one’, this always alarms me, this smells of Hollywood and certain times (of the past),” Medvedev said at the end of a nuclear security summit in the South Korean capital.
“I would recommend all U.S. presidential candidates … to do two things. First, when phrasing their position one needs to use one’s head, one’s good reason, which would not do harm to a presidential candidate.
“Also, (one needs to) look at his watch: we are in 2012 and not the mid-1970s.”
Mittens should be extremely embarrassed by this gaffe, but he won’t be. He never admits he’s made a mistake. Also, Boehner, piled on by saying that Mitt was wrong to criticize the president while he was overseas at a conference. He gets a point for that!
Yes, he did, cat!
Welcome back Chips!
Collegekay – will be supportive 🙂
Couple of thoughts:
#PRESSON
Hi Bob! May I recommend this classic?
“Mr. Boehner, where are the JOBS?”
Go, Dmitry! No matter what else is going on in Russia, I love this.
saw this on twitter
check out the link.
you’ll like it. hint:barack and babies!
Loving it! Thanks LandL!
FREEDOM TO DO NOTHING
The Contrived Theory of the Obamacare Lawsuit
By Jonathan Chait
=================================
The lawsuits to nullify the Affordable Care Act, say conservatives, are about far more than mere health care. They represent a last chance to establish a Constitutional basis for freedom itself. Regulating inactivity “would expand the federal government’s authority over individual Americans to an unprecedented degree,” wrote a pair of Republican lawyers in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that helped launch the legal challenge. A National Review editorial declares, “a federal mandate would expand federal powers still further, and in a way that does not admit of any principled limit.” Right-wing members of Congress, intellectuals, and even legal opinions have buzzed with fearful predictions of a future in which the federal government forces Americans to eat broccoli or buy G.M. cars.
It has been remarkable to watch an entirely new conceptualization of freedom arise from thin air so quickly.
=================================
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/03/contrived-theory-of-the-obamacare-lawsuit.html
I’m not liking the sound of the report by Pete Williams on msnbc just now on the proceedings at the SC. He said Scalia’s questions re. govt’s case were openly hostile, when he had been supportive of fed’s power in past. Not really surprising, but the more worrisome comment was that Kennedy, the supposed “swing vote” was also hostile. Williams said if he had to predict right now, he would predict the health care law was in trouble.
Dotster, I would really urge you to not heed stuff that comes from the MSM regarding the ACA. It is expected that they would say things like that – it gets people riled up and translates into ratings. It also helps to advance GOP propaganda and depress Democrats.
Meanwhile, I say good for Pete williams and msnbc. I’m sure he’s predicted many negative things for President Obama based on bits and pieces of scattered information. An example would be that PBO would not get elected President in 2008, or that HCR would not even have passed. How many of those “predictions” came to pass? ZERO.
The President just came off of a very successful overseas trip, so time for another “Obama is DOOMED” story. If you look back over the last 4 years it’s a very predictable pattern with the MSM. Because it can never be said enough, don’t fall for the okey-doke.
This is what we’re hearing from legal scholars, not just reporters. We can stay hopeful but we have to be aware of what actually happened today. If Kennedy was hostile then we’re in serious trouble.
Some of these “legal scholars” also have their own political agenda. I’ve seen this movie many, many times before.
I’m following this pretty closely and I’m making it a point to not follow the pack and keep an open mind. I’m no lawyer but I’ve been a paralegal and I understand some of this. Unfortunately with these Republicans and this SC, law and the reputation of the courts has nothing to do with it. It is all political. The sinking pit in my stomach (and you, hopefruit, are going to HATE this) is that because the administration did not do a good enough job at selling and explaining this bill, there won’t be as big an outcry as there would have been. There are way too many Americans who still don’t understand the advantages of the bill and who really don’t understand how the mandate is important to its success. It’s a complete head scratcher to me.
Williams now joined by another sup. ct. expert and both agree that ct. is “on the edge of saying law is unconstitutional”. They both only see 4 votes in support, no 5th vote. It sounds like it got so ridiculous that Scalia was asking if the govt. could require people to eat broccoli, and other such nonsense.
dotster3, don’t worry yourself. If I was you I would not listen to these people like Pete Williams . We don’t know what will happen, all we can do is pray the right thing is done.
Sigh! All we can do now is see how it plays out and pray the justices care more about the people of this country than their own ideologies.
I thought Pete Williams covered the Pentagon……
Don’t forget he is a close friend of Liz Cheney. He cannot be trusted to be unbiased….
I knew somebody in the ’90s who knew him, and said he was a total chauvinist, when he was spokesman at the Pentagon. Saw the women professionals around him practically as people who’d “get him coffee.” I always think of that, when I see him. Turd. Yuck.
Please guys, I know we want to believe the best and until there’s a decision there’s always hope. But damn near universally from experts today, this does not look good.
Stop watching the reports on it. The MSM is doing its best to create as much drama as they can around this case. Stop watching this show that they are putting on.
I was listening to NPR and an observer stated how they (Scalia and Kennedy) were grilling the Solicitor General (I think) on whether this mandate wouldn’t be overstating government control (my words), and Roberts went on with the “broccolis” metaphor. The observer said she did not see a sign that either of the conservatives would move for the law. The interviewer finished with it doesn’t look good for the ACA at this point. This is why I must ask any of us who are “prayers” and those who choose to send up positive thoughts and hopes, do this for PBO. Put your own inclinations aside for one day, atleast, and consider how a loss would embolden those who oppose PBO to the depths of hell, would have the chance to dance on our heads——if the law goes down. Nothing more we can do. Just my positive 2 cents.
Please stop with the doom and gloom. yesterday Roberts was “tipping his hand” for ACA. Today it’s doooooooomed! Tomorrow, Thomas will sneeze and that will have some profound meaning. They will make a decision in MaY or June.
Only tpm had that take on Roberts. I’ve been following this pretty closely and I didn’t see anyone else with that impression.
I understand they have to go through the calisthenics of hearings and such, and I don’t exactly admit doom. My suggestion really is that at this point, there is nothing any of us supporters can do but think and pray up the positive. Thus my “positive 2 cents”.
I agree, Debz. The MSM are in the business of creating drama and their own narrative. Robert’s questions were nothing but playing the “Devil’s Advocate” so that the Solicitor General must support his claims. Nothing new here.
WJS had a different take than TPM, there wasn’t all the hair on fire nonsense.
That should be WSJ
I hear you Debz
I THINK THAT WE COULD DRIVE OURSELVES NUTS…LISTENING TO THE DIRE PREDICITONS OF THE MAINSTREAM PRESS…WE WILL HAVE TO REMAIN HOPEFUL AND POSITIVE…AND SUPPORTIVE…
…pRESSSSSSSSSS on
Hey there collegekay, Just sent you a lil’ bit to help your reach your goal. Congratulations and good luck!
I just donated Collegekay.
Welp, ignore my rosiness from a few minutes ago. Just read the report from TPM. Heaven forbid we have a national health care system like every single other advanced economy.
Yes, it looks like it is the consensus of all reporters and legal experts that were in attendance today that the law is in “grave trouble”.
This is a revolting development——sounds like politics is definitely in play.
I could let out a rant right now, but it would be garbled gibberish. I’ll wait to calm down and maybe write something for TPV.
I’m sharing Smartypants viewpoint from yesterday re the ACA, the media and the ‘final’ outcome. It’s worth a (re)read IMO. It can be easily accessed from the link to the right but I copied the link here anyway.
“I suspect that the political news this week will be consumed by the debate at the Supreme Court about health care reform. Its probably a good thing that we get it all out now – but frankly, I’m not looking forward to the spin that is sure to ensue. The reality is that the real news won’t happen for months…the actual ruling from SCOTUS. And in the meantime, the pundits will have a heyday predicting the outcome and spinning those meaningless predictions ad infinitum.
So I’ve hesitated to read much in the lead-up because it will all be a test of mental gymnastics for awhile now and I simply am not up for the hysteria.”
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.ca/2012/03/prepare-yourself-for-great-american.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/lpjFg+%28Smartypants%29
This.
I love smartypants but I simply cannot follow this logic: ignore what’s happening until the decision happens? I understand ignoring the hyper-ventillating big-mouth press, but actual reports about the proceedings are important for me to make a personal assessment.
57F, I’m not sure if you read the entire post, but I not only found it quite informative in a ‘simplified’ way, I didn’t really conclude that she was advocating that we ignore what is happening vis a vis the actual debates. I concluded that SP planned to ignore the pseudo predictions and the hysteria they generate, and I agree with her. It never fails that in a large community such as ours there will be those who enjoy roller coaster rides as well as those who prefer to just go slowly around the train tracks, and of course those who fall in between. . I’m a train track type, so I shared this now because I felt that the ‘hysteria’ was starting to build here and in a way it seemed pointless, as nothing will be definitive until much later. I was saying to other ‘train track’ types a)not to get caught in the hype and get their blood pressure up, I guess, and b) we are not alone. Just my take. Like you, I do believe that ‘ACTUAL REPORTS about the proceedings are important’, personal interpretations, not so much.
Toobin: ‘This Law Looks Like It’s Going To Be Struck Down’
CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, following Supreme Court arguments on President Obama’s health care law, said on CNN that based on what he heard inside the Court, things didn’t look good for proponents of the law.
“This was a train wreck for the Obama administration,” he said. “This law looks like it’s going to be struck down. I’m telling you, all of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong… if I had to bet today I would bet that this court is going to strike down the individual mandate.”
Toobin added that he felt that U.S. Solicitor General David Verrilli simply wasn’t prepared for the conservative justices.
“I don’t know why he had a bad day,” he said. “He is a good lawyer, he was a perfectly fine lawyer in the really sort of tangential argument yesterday. He was not ready for the answers for the conservative justices.”
Toobin also said he thought Justice Kennedy, the perennial swing vote, was a “lost cause” for supporters of the health care reform law.
—–
Oh Dear.
See what I mean? Toobin fanning the flames based one day of some tough question. He’s trying to give the impression that Verrilli’s response to everything was the dog ate my homework. This thing just started yesterday. We got a ways to go.
Different issues are argued on different days. When you hear the questions asked by the justices, there is no excuse for Vermilli to be unprepared to answer effectively. They didn’t throw curveballs — the questions were completely predictable. No one, even staunch supporters of the law who are writing today, think he did a good job. And yes, today is immensely important on its own.
Toobin is a disaster. Isn’t he the same guy who said Justice Sotomayor was completely unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice, and he’s spent several nights with Keith Olbermann (when he was back on MSNBC, I don’t want Current) criticizing the President on every little topic. I don’t know how he has any credibility.
He was on Countdown last night saying they would uphold….I watched him defend a Federal Judge that was being impeached last year.
He lost the case and I was not impressed with his style at all.
Go figure….
i just gave a little bit too College Kay! best wishes in meeting your goal and then to go beyond your goal!
San Diego gets the national news spotlight again…
iPads, Laptops Stolen From Romney Aides’ SUV
Stolen Items May Have Valuable Information For Opponents Of GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney
http://www.10news.com/news/30767730/detail.html
Okay, okay, let’s not panic yet—and that includes myself. From TPM’s David Kurtz:
The drafters of the Constitution made many mistakes. Keeping slavery was the gravest. But I think following that in a close second was lifetime tenure for federal judges, including SCOTUS justices.
Agree about the mistakes, and I will try to not jump to conclusions also, but almost all the reports have been alarming—in fact, all except this exchange with TPM’s Kaupr.
I just don’t trust this Sup. Ct. As Josh Marshall tweeted, Bush v. Gore 2.0?
Is there one more day of argument?
Yes, and a decision will not be rendered until June. My thoughts are along the same lines as this individual here:
Interesting.
What infuriates me to no end is that getting something done in this country for the common good gets blowback from people who will be helped by the new law. No, Justice Scalia, the Obama Administration isn’t telling citizens to eat broccoli; it just wants to make sure that the country doesn’t bankrupt itself with health costs. Asswipe.
hopefruit2 – Count me in as having the same thoughts.
There is only a total of 6 hours of argument.
One day of tough questioning in March does not decide how the court will rule in June. Slow down. This may go back and forth for awhile.
And of course the reports are alarming. You know that’s how the media deals with this President. Open mic ring a bell? I know we all want to stay up to date on what’s going on but don’t let these hacks make you crazy.
#PRESSON
Woot! Look at collegekay’s total grow! Nice work, TOD’ers. Keep it going if you can.
Santorum’s okay with being the VP pick…
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/rick-santorum-gives-up-on-his-insurgent-label.php?ref=fpb
“Monday’s campaign news cycle was all about “bullshit”-gate, a controversy over an outburst Santorum made at a New York Times reporter. Cursing at a journalist on camera ensured that the spat became the news, rather than any serious discussion of his viability as a candidate. It also gave critics an easy target for a candidate who espouses conservative family values as a cornerstone of his campaign.
And “bullshit”-gate wasn’t even the biggest gaffe Santorum made since winning the primary.
That came in a Monday in which Santorum turned in his flamethrower badge and effectively gave up his role as anti-Romney insurgent. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Santorum said he’d be comfortable running as Romney’s running mate.
“I’ll do whatever is necessary to help our country,” Santorum said when asked if he’d consider joining a Romney ticket.”
Well, I’ve just finished talking to the HHS Human Resources department about my application to CDC and it looks like I did not get the job I applied for. From the statement I got from the HR Specialist, I wasn’t considered for the position. They rank you based solely on your answers to the online questionnaire in comparison to the resume you post on USAJOBS.gov. Based on an algorithm used for Federal job applicants to weaning out qualified applicants for positions, they rank you on a scale of 100%. For the job I applied for, my ranking was 89%. The HR Specialist said that I was considered a “well-qualified” applicant, but based on my score, I wasn’t the “best-qualified” applicant (i.e. >95%) for the position.
So that’s that then. I think I’m gonna spend the rest of the summer saving some money and deciding what my next journey will be.
thanks everyone who provided me some good vibes.
I’m sorry, lamh. I know you must be so disappointed. I bet something else will present itself soon. Keep a positive outlook. I wish the best for you.
lamh35, my suggestion, as former govt employee, is, if you really really really want to work at the CDC, apply for every job that you qualify for, whether or not you really want it. It’s much easier to get a job in government, when you are already in the department where you want to be. Also, you may find that your ‘dream job’ isn’t really the job you thought it was. Or you may find out that it’s EXACTLY what you want. If you are “in” the system, you have a better shot of getting the gig. Just my $.02. Peace on your journey
Thanks isonprize.
I have been applying for any Microbiologist positions I see at CDC.
Good on ya, lamh35. Even if you have to take an interim job, doesn’t mean that if you’re relentless in your goal that you will (eventually) obtain it. Prayers and a protective light to you, Dear Lamh.
Aww, that bites lamh. I know a couple of people who’ve had similar difficulties getting into the CDC. Try the the private route, if you can. Lots of biotech-related stuff going on in Georgia. Check out this list of companies on the download page here:
http://www.gabio.org/content.aspx?pageid=89
Check out their websites and see if something there pans out for you.
Keep your head up. The right opportunity will come to you, I just know it.
This might not be a job, but something of interest perhaps?
https://www.researchmatch.org/
Sorry you didn’t get in THIS TIME, lamh; maybe next time will be the charm.
{{{lamh35}}}
SCOTUS Citizens United decision is, as all of you know, among the very worst.
For SCOTUS to disrupt #ObamaCares would have enormous and rapid negative consequences to both SCOTUS and the Party of Koch & Norquist (PKN – former GOP).
The PKN has already solidified women, Hispanics, AAs, unions, LGBTs and thinking people against them.
Enabling President Obama to run a campaign in which he can excoriate the PKN & SCOTUS for both the vastly undemocratic consequences of Citizens United and the harm disrupting #ObamaCares would do to countless Americans – well, as orchestrated by our brilliant President – you will in_deed witness #LandslideOBAMA & #LandslideDEMS on 6 Nov 2012.
And, in 2013 you will see legislation to make Medicare available to every US citizen and it will pass. And, in 2013 you will see Citizens United overturned by Congress.
#PRESSON
Your tweetin’ mouth to God’s ears!!!
As you request … hopefully ‘someone’ hears it 🙂
#PRESSON
go bob go!
God Bob, I hope you’re right. I’m just livid right now that all these forces are arrayed against a piece of legislation that HELPS PEOPLE. I write the best when I’m in a rage, so something’s bubbling up for a TPV piece.
Go for it, LL. Really respect your writing and that you TPV as a venue to share it with others.
It’s a lose-lose for the #KOCHSTERS on SCOTUS – they harm ACA, they harm millions of Americans and #PresObama will make them regret it forever; they rule ACA is Constitutional, well the #teabagger, Bircher minions of Koch and clan will not treat them well.
#PRESSON
Bob, President Obama made some enemies on the court during his SOTU address when he called them out about the Citizens United decision. They just might want to teach this black man a lesson.
Hey Hey CollegeKay – You go! you’re getting up there – I threw somethin in the kitty fer yez. w00t! 😀
My opinion is in line with yours Bobfr.
Personally, I have never had any faith in those justices. I have no idea how this will all turn out and none of us do but based on the history of this court (Citizens United and Gore v Bush) I know how these major cases generally are decided. Justice Kenney the supposedly “swing vote” generally sides with the conservatives. I cannot think of one case in recent history (the last 10 years) where he had sided with the more liberal or moderate justices.
We can have the most brilliant attorneys in the world on our side and if this conservative court wants to go in a certain direction on the law they will.
This is why elections matter so when our liberal/progressive friends tell us when speaking about politicians and lumping them all together and then they say, “they are all the same so it doesn’t make a difference who we vote for” remind them of the Supreme Court and the profound affect that their decisions have on our daily lives.
I believe that a win will confirm the President’s decision on ACA but I believe it will rally the Right (to no avail) and if god-forbid we lose this case it will be a tremendous boost and rally cry for our side.
I am preparing myself for either scenario.
If the case is lost, then I believe it’s too much to expect a human being to put their neck on the line again to try and pass something so significant that was spit on by so many. I’m sure the President would do it because he believes so strongly in health security, but it’s not entirely clear that many of the cowards in Congress – especially those who refused to tout the benefits of the bill in 2010 – would stand up for another battle.
The fact that this case is even legitimately being debated in the Supreme Court right now is an extreme embarrassment for this country. And the fact that there are people praying against the law in front of the Supreme Court is extremely frightening. It’s evil.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE LAW, STUPID
Forget precedent. Ignore Scalia’s musings. Next week’s health care argument before the Supreme Court is all about optics, politics, and public opinion.
By Dahlia Lithwick (3/22/12)
============================
The first proposition is that the health care law is constitutional. The second is that the court could strike it down anyway. Linda Greenhouse makes the first point more eloquently than I can. That the law is constitutional is best illustrated by the fact that—until recently—the Obama administration expended almost no energy defending it. Back when the bill passed Nancy Pelosi famously reacted to questions about its constitutionality with the words, “Are you serious?” And the fact that the Obama administration rushed the case to the Supreme Court in an election year is all the evidence you need to understand that they remain confident in their prospects. The law is a completely valid exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause power, and all the conservative longing for the good old days of the pre-New Deal courts won’t put us back in those days as if by magic. Nor does it amount to much of an argument.
So that brings us to the really interesting question: Will the Court’s five conservatives strike it down regardless? That’s what we’re really talking about next week and that has almost nothing to do with law and everything to do with optics, politics, and public opinion.
.
.
===============================
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/03/the_supreme_court_is_more_concerned_with_the_politics_of_the_health_care_debate_than_the_law_.html
No one believed Bush v. Gore would be decided the way it was either and the Court is even worse now.
If they’re buying the broccoli defense, this is not good news.
Of course, Toobin for CNN is the one that started this rumor, that the HC law will be struck down!
The truth is that it doesn’t really matter what the media says. This conservative court will decide and we should be prepared for either scenario.
Uhhhh I was listening to CNN and had to turn that shit off!!!! Dude was getting on like he has foresight or he’s freaking Jesus Christ!!!! This is ridiculous!!!!
Toobin is a right wing tool.
Good afternoon y’all. I dug up the following bit for some of us that are old enough to remember. A little entertainment while we wait for the black robes to justify their existence.
Subject: Older Than Dirt
THOUGHT YOU MIGHT ENJOY THIS:
‘Someone asked the other day, ‘What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?’
‘We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,’ I informed him..
‘All the food was slow.’
‘C’mon, seriously. Where did you eat?’
‘It was a place called ‘at home,” I explained. !
‘Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it..’
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it :
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.
In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck.
Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.
My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow)
We didn’t have a television in our house until I was 19.
It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a..m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.
I was 21 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called ‘pizza pie.’
When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It’s still the best pizza I ever had..
I never had a telephone in my room.
The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line..
Pizzas were not delivered to our home But milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers –my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6AM every morning.
On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren Just don’t blame me if they bust a gut laughing.
Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?
MEMORIES from a friend :
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother’s house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it.. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea.. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to ‘sprinkle’ clothes with because we didn’t have steam irons. Man, I am old.
How many do you remember?
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Older Than Dirt Quiz :
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about.
Ratings at the bottom.
1.. Blackjack chewing gum
2.Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines on the telephone
8 Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11.. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels [if you were fortunate])
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S& H greenstamps
16.. Hi-fi’s
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered 0-5 = You’re still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don’t tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You’ re older t han dirt!
I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Awww. I range in the 0-5 range :(. Wish I was in the era of “slow food” though….not only because nothing beat Granny’s cooking but because something about that lifetime sparks interest in me.
Oh my God, I remembered all of them. I am old.
Not to worry japa two one. You are not alone.
Me too. 66 this September and I remember them all. Especially picking up the phone and hearing someone on there. Had to listen to some gossip, couldn’t hang up right away. Sometimes you caught the voices sometimes you didn’t. Worked at the phone company on the old switchboard the ones that took up a whole room in a long line with wires to the front and back. Back for answering, front for sending calls. Good old days.
I didn’t remember them all, but I’m definitely older than dirt! 🙂
I didn’t remember the all, but I’m older than dirt. I didn’t realize I was so old. 😯
Pinky shake, sabreen. We gotta stick together. 🙂
Then you ain’t!
I’m definitely older than dirt! I will add “the back house” (that was the out door toilet) just for you younguns information. Also hand pumping water from the well. My Granny didn’t get indoor plumbing until I was about 7. That was the best, sweetest cold, well water on a hot day. I can still taste it. Best was making fresh peach ice cream on Granny’s patio with everyone taking a turn at the hand crank.
What I won’t treasure is doing laundry with the old wringer washer and ironing everything even the linen dish towels or doing dishes by hand for 12 people every day. Then there was canning, I don’t miss that either.
We have surely come from far. I moved into a new apartment and I h ave a nice new dishwasher. No more dipping your hand in greasy water. I would have killed for one of those had wringing washing machine. We used a scrub board and the wringer was your hand. As for that ice vream bucket it was hard to do but we took turns turning.
You gotta admit that our days were full and we were seldom bored.
I will be 69 on Monday but still here, if that’s older than dirt then it’s been good.
Well Happy Birthday. I’ve got 3 years on you young blood. 😀
Young blood, l like that. You made my day.
I’m at the don’t tell your age stage.
Oh really? If you remember any of this stuff you should be bragging. 🙂
I’m in the 0-5 range. More like the zero. I don’t remember ANY of those items mentioned above. I’ve only heard vague stories. Some of those things existed? Wow.
Don’t worry You’ll have your own set of memories to look back on. I leave you with this that was given to me 60 years ago: “Think about where you’re going;but always remember where you’ve been.”
Is the health care market unique enough to warrant a government mandate to purchase health insurance? POLITICO’s Jason Millman flags Justice Anthony Kennedy — a key swing vote — leaning towards yes in Tuesday’s oral arguments, even as he has tough questions for the government:
JUSTICE KENNEDY: And the government tells us that’s because the insurance market is unique. And in the next case, it’ll say the next market is unique. But I think it is true that if most questions in life are matters of degree, in the insurance and health care world, both markets — stipulate two markets — the young person who is uninsured is uniquely proximately very close to affecting the rates of insurance and the costs of providing medical care in a way that is not true in other industries. That’s my concern in this case.
Phew!!!
Hm. That’s different from the “Obamacare is doomed!” talk we’ve been hearing! We’ll just have to see.
Okay, so where the hell did the doom and gloom come from? That seems like someone who’s leaning towards the government’s case. Is the media really that corrupt?
Didn’t I tell ya? The doom and gloom came from the usual suspects – Sam Stein of HuffnPuff; Ezra Klein; the Professional Left “Public option” hysteria freaks, The corporate media including MSNBC, CNN and their jerk-ass “legal analysts” and many others.
The members of our failed media experiment don’t care about ACA being repealed. They’ll still have their health care. They just want to gin up ratings. Quite frankly, they disgust me.
Congrats CollegeKay, and TODville, you are over the 2/3 mark! Good luck as you hit your stride in the final lap.
This woman is a lawyer and she was near the front of the line to go into the court and witness.
So you believe that propaganda. And her pejorative use of the word “Obamacare” is duly noted, as was the case with HuffnPuff’s Sam Stein.
Not sure what you’re getting at but she is on our side. Just click on her name and look at her timeline.
She’s making a statement about the pitiful Alito falling asleep during oral arguments.
If she’s on our side then she’s being careless with those tweets. The fact that Alito is falling asleep doesn’t mean a damn thing. She’s feeding into the hysteria by giving a ball-by-ball report along with her interpretation of every bodily twitch of the panel. I don’t think that’s helping our cause.
Another thing – the fact that someone has the title of “lawyer” does not mean they’re anything other than a 1st-class dolt. Just ask Rick Santorum, the lawyer.
I added that she’s a lawyer because she is fighting for ACA and understands the legal jargon in a way that perhaps I do not. Nothing more, nothing less.
Okay then. But her tweet about Alito falling asleep is not helpful at all. Even if someone is on our side they can and sometimes do get a bit ahead of themselves in feeding media hysteria and propaganda. Given the hysteria that already exists because of what the media just put out, she could have been a bit more restrained that regard. Just my 2 cents.
So Alito is an Italian version of Thomas. No surprise there. They both have a visceral hatred of the President.
The disrespect that these neocon justices have for the office, is only exceeded by the disrespect that they have for the people of this country. Sickening….
Much of the commentary appears to be based on the questioning of the government’s position. There is some hope from some of the questions posed to the challengers’:
Justice Kennedy again jumps in with a comment that expresses some sympathy for the government. All citizens are in the market, he said, in the sense that they’re creating a risk that must be accounted for.
. . . .
Chief Justice Roberts speaks up with his first comments that appear to help the government. The chief said the key to the government’s argument is that everyone is in the health-care market, which makes this different than other products. All the government is trying to do, he said, is regulate how health care is paid for.
. . . .
Justice Kennedy, who had been critical of the government’s argument earlier in the day, for the first time jumps in to take issue with the challengers. He seems to bristle at the suggestion that young, healthy people without insurance are somehow beyond regulatory consideration. Such a person is “an actuarial reality who can and must be measured,” he said.
Why would young people be beyond regulatory consideration. My adult son’s new job would not pay for health insurance until the employee had been there 6 months. While my son was in his 3rd month on the job, he broke his finger playing basketball. His finger was broken in such a way that surgery was needed. The doctor had to put pins in his finger. Had my son not had the surgery his finger would be deformed for the rest of his life. Accidents happen. I don’t care how old you are. We paid for the surgery because I couldn’t bear the thought of my son having problems using his hand forever. There are plenty of young people who get cancer and any number of diseases. What is wrong with these people.
REPEAL AND REPLACE WITH…..NOTHING
By Steve Benen
============================
As Jon Chait explained, “The choice we face is not between Obamacare and some different, even more ‘market-friendly’ alternative reform. It’s between Obamacare and subjecting millions of Americans to the insecurity and suffering of lacking health insurance. The uninsured can have the Republicans’ answer now. Their offer is this: nothing.”
When the debate over health care reform got underway in earnest in 2009, Frank Luntz and other GOP pollsters/strategists warned the party that Americans expected improvements to the dysfunctional system, and Republicans couldn’t simply say “no” to everything.
Three years later, that’s effectively where the party has ended up: wanting to go back to the mess “Obamacare” is cleaning up.
.
.
So what’s wrong with Obama’s approach of minimum standards to prevent this? For consumers and families, nothing. For conservatives, though, it means federal regulations, and we can’t have that because it would mean officials looking out for consumers, which is, you know, bad. Or something
============================
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/27/10887708-repeal-and-replace-with-nothing
Well, I am older than dirt! Thanks for the fun.
Happy Birthday Proud. Please enjoy your day!!!
We all have to breathe. I hope that the portions of the law being debated in front of the SC aren’t overturned, because too many people depend on the law. However, I think we all have an idea about how the ruling will be due to the makeup of the judges. Also, Clarence not asking questions is weird. I know back in 09′ it was reported that he went a ver long time not asking questions during hearings. There is no point for him to be there, and earn his salary, since he is not actually a participating judge.
I don’t think Thomas has ever asked a question as long as he’s been on the court.
#PRESSON
Hmm..@Barack Obama seems rather nonchalant – with the usual tweets about the ACA. Meanwhile people are freaking out over media circus hysteria….
that is because ACA will be upheld. Not sure why folks are insistent on the hand wringing especially so early in the cycle.
I am confident the law will be upheld in it’s entirety. Everything else is noise and a diversion to create a distraction from the repub field.
Awww, I have a special place in my heart for Dr. Maddy (Former Sec of State Madeleine Albright). Always wished I could be her student. Got a campaign email from her today.
—————-
It seems every time women take one step forward, extremists try to push us back.
Here in America, Republicans have launched an all out attack on women’s rights. They’ve targeted women’s health care and are trying to roll back basic rights that most of us thought were won more than a generation ago.
My friend Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats are fighting back against the Republican attacks on women’s rights. And, they need your help.
They’ve set a goal of raising $2.5 million before the key end-of-quarter FEC deadline to show we will stand strong and united against the Republican attack on women’s rights.
Republicans are on the wrong side of history, once again.
Women will never go back to the days where we could not control our own reproductive health care decisions – and we will not remain silent in the face of vicious misogyny and anti-women hate speech.
But, one thing I’ve learned is that rights never stay won. Each generation must stand up and fight to hold accountable those who would try to take our rights away.
Please stand with me, Leader Pelosi and House Democrats today:
http://dccc.org/Stand-with-Us
Thank you,
Madeleine Albright
Maybe it’s because I just got done with Story Time and basking in the glow of my Story Time kids, but I’m a bit less panicky right now, especially after reading more reports that indicate that Kennedy and Roberts, though asking hard questions, seem to be favorable to the government’s argument. When I think of why I want this country to change the way it does things, I just picture my Tuesday morning crowd. They have to be left a better world than the one we have.
Such a beautiful thought, LL. Thanks for that!
Part of the role of the justices is to grill both sides hard and challenge their arguments. If you listen to just a small portion, you will end up with only a partial view. Neither sets of questions, toward the government or the plaintiffs, will directly tell you which way they are leaning. I would be more interested in the tone of the questions and comments, rather than the words themselves. Not seeing much reporting on that aspect.
Excellent point, japa! We all need to take some deep cleansing breaths and let the process run its course.
Thank you.
LL, you express yourself so well!
It’s okay and IMO we are entitled to feel passionately about this case. It will have a profound affect on each of us not just politically but personally as well. Our media will be ridiculous and unfortunately they are the source of news and we have to take everything they say with a grain of salt. It shouldn’t be that way but the days of Cronkite have long since past.
Hang in there its gonna be a long, hot summer 😉
I agree, although there appears to be universal assessment that Verilli (our guy) ‘choked’ and Clement (their guy) did great. I won’t have a chance to listen to the oral arguments until later tonight to make my own judgment, but hearing something is not the same as seeing it.
It does appear that none of the questions should have been unanticipated by Verilli, which is why people are really unhappy with his performance.
Some of Roberts’ and Kennedy’s comments are encouraging, however.
CK needs $11 to meet her goal. C’mon, who’s gonna put her over the top?
That would be ME!
LL!! You sexy thing, you! Come here let me plant one on ya! {{{mmmmmwah!!}}}
You guys are AWESOME!
When she gets out of class and sees what TOD has done she is going to be thrilled!!!
Anything for the kids, donna-dear! 🙂
How’s your’ tote, by the way? I can’t find the link. Payday’s coming up soon.
Here is TPM’s article on Kennedy and Roberts. I’m with LL – feeling a little less panicky.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/kennedy-roberts-look-poised-to-determine-fate-of-mandate.php?ref=fpa
And like Deaniac says, if the court votes to uphold the law but strike down the mandate, then private insurance will die a quick death. And as Bob says, if the entire law is stricken, then PBO and the Dems will roar fully on totally remaking health care by pushing for Medicare for all. Everyone loves Medicare. It would be a landslide.
Whoa. Let me read Deaniac before I respond in full, but the basic premise — without the mandate private insurance dies a quick death — I just don’t get that at all. Even if they are required to ‘offer’ insurance that covers pre-existing conditions, if there are no mechanisms for controlling the premiums, then can’t they charge anything they want and the public will indeed be ‘free’ to not have health care?
And if the SC determines that the mandate is not severable, isn’t there a chance the entire bill goes down in flames? There’s still the issue of the expansion of Medicaid as well.
Unfortunately, because of the poisonous political climate under which the bill had to be drafted, I don’t believe there is anything in this bill that guarantees health care to anybody, just a more effective mechanism for making it affordable through the private market, therefore it will be available to more Americans.
I’ve seen PBO work magic in turning around a narrative. I just wish he could have stood on the shoulders of a giant of his own making, with the majority of Americans understanding what groundbreaking legislation this is and how much the entire country will benefit from its implementation. He’s not starting from a position of strength if the mandate or any other portion of the bill is struck down.
The mandate is the thing that keeps down costs. Take the mandate out, and the whole structure crumbles. Will SCOTUS strike the mandate and keep the rest of the law? I don’t know. Right now I’m in a rage that something so commonsensical and beneficial to the majority of people in this country is under attack. I’m really close to hating a large segment of our population, and that’s not healthy.
I agree, get rid of health insurance for good. Equal care for all.
Wait….I’m surfing the web and I’m seeing prominent news websites taking a spin on this Trayvon Martin travesty! They are now questioning whether a teenager who was armed only with skittles and ice tea could have initiated his death is infuriating me! First of all I’m already infuriated because Zimmerman is not arrested and the Stanford FL police did not conduct a proper police investigation at the night of the shooting!!! According to Zimmerman he was heading back to his vehicle when Trayvon approach him, a argument ensued, Trayvon punched him in the nose knocking him to the ground, jump on top of him and began beating his head against the pavement…nothing add up!!! Nothing adds up to the time Trayvon was on the phone with his girlfriend and the time the police arrived, nothing adds up to the 9 11 calls and the screaming indidvidual that immediately stopped screaming as soon as the gun shot went off and I could go on and on. But I would just like to say this to you all and you can give me and answer, If you identify a person as suspicious and that person comes up to you, you have a gun in your waist wouldn’t you pull out your gun immediately and point it to the suspicious indidvidual and say “step one step closer and I’ll blow your brains out!” ??? Now that reaction would of definitely scare off Trayvon simply because as stated in the police report he was unarmed!!!! An unarmed indidvidual would not try to fight someone with a gun it’s a natural thing!!
Secondly all these fools who are saying he’s a criminal just because they found marijuana residue on him or because he defaced school property or because on his twitter page he referred to himself with a racial slur then there are sooooooo many teenagers of all racial background that needs to be shot!….starting with the President of the United States. So many black rappers used the N-word to describe themselves and others. So many doctors, lawyers, News Presenters, Teacher, Entertainers etc were suspended during their school years for many different reasons. Teens makes mistakes for many different reasons but to deny them the opportunity to redeem themselves is outrageous!!!! This young man had NO CRIMINAL RECORDS….he may have not been a saint neither are YOU!!! He didn’t deserve to die that way and this Zimmerman idiot needs to be ARRESTED NOW!!!!!! I’m not appalled by this tragedy at all but I am outrage by the fact that despite public outcry nothing has been down more than a month later! SAD SAD SAD!!!!
Zimmerman is a killer. He gets to make up whatever he wants to because his victim is dead and cannot speak up to defend himself and now he’s trying to save his own ass. The media are doing this to stir up trouble. I’m white but I will tell you the truth. They want a violent reaction from black people. They want to provoke anger. They want it to become another source of division because they were scared that all DECENT people black and white were united in their sympathy for Trayvan and his family. All the teenage sons of my (white) friends have smoked dope. It shouldn’t be an issue.
I’m going to pray now. I’m pretty disgusted with the world.
http://mashable.com/2012/03/24/top-10-twitter-pics-10/
New post everyone:
http://theobamadiary.com/2012/03/27/afternoon-all-46/
THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE COURT
Why the last hour of the Supreme Court argument over Obamacare matters most.
By Simon Lazarus
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By the third day of Supreme Court arguments over the Affordable Care Act, people may be inclined to tune out. They shouldn’t. The final hour may be of far greater consequence than anything else the court hears this week. On Wednesday afternoon, the justices will vet a claim that targets the part of the new law that expands the Medicaid program. The Republican governors and attorneys general bringing the case against the health care law assert that the choice given states by the federal government—either accept coverage of approximately 16 million newly eligible beneficiaries or withdraw from Medicaid and lose all existing federal Medicaid funds—is “coercion.” Hence, they argue that with this provision, the federal government is unconstitutionally undermining state autonomy.
.
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Then again, the court will probably not relish the opportunity to risk disruption at all levels of government. No matter how much Clement and the challengers try to downplay it, the court’s conservatives know how much hinges on this last hour of argument. Let’s hope they rise above the temptations put before them.
==============================
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/03/republican_governors_claim_obamacare_is_a_violation_of_states_rights_.html
NFIB said the argument against HCR went very good.
Justice Kennedy maybe the only hope. They seem to have had a pre conceived notion, before the arguments.
I donated a little collegekay. I am going to meditate and put out positive vibes and prayers for ACA to be upheld. Goodness knows it’s time we had this. I signed and tweeted the petition from the DCCC in support of Health Care Reform. Don’t know what else to do now but wait and pray.