change

****

If you can, please support the President by supporting Collegekay’s fundraising target:

Link

Thank you 😉

‘sworn american enemy’?

a word from tally: the affordable care act

by Tally

What is the Conservative God? Money. What is the Conservative goal? Pure capitalism. How do they achieve that? Kill the public sector so the private sector can do the same thing, but make a PROFIT using fewer people to do more work for less money. (Killing jobs for profit. You know, like Mitt Romney.)

Once upon a time, Health Insurance in the United States was a regulated industry. Then President Reagan deregulated it, and until President Obama signed the ACA into law on March 23rd, 2010, it was legal for a Health Insurance company to take your money for 20+ years, then drop you once you needed serious coverage, and never give you a refund.

Ever since the beginning of The Great Health Care Reform Fight, the GOP has been screaming that this is a “GIFT” to the Health Insurance industry, and everyone on the Right have done everything they can think of to either overturn it, or “take back” the government so they can repeal it.

I want you to go read that paragraph again. Doesn’t it seem odd? To me it’s like the laws of gravity ceasing to exist on Earth because the Health Insurance industry (and by extension, BIG PHARMA) is one of the largest donors to the GOP.

If the ACA is the giant “gift” the GOP wants you to believe it is, why are the Health Cartels™ spending billions of dollars for lobbyists and donations to the GOP to repeal it? If it’s a “gift”, where are the campaigns from Anthem and Aetna trying to make it permanent? Where are the commercials from United Healthcare saying how much they love the ACA? Why aren’t the GOP candidates singing its praises since it’s theoretically pouring more money into their Sugar Daddy’s pockets, and ultimately their own?

Read full post here

a word from slick9

by Slick9

As a lurker here and definitely not a lawyer I have one piece of info to add regarding yesterday’s hearings. There was a time when I had to make a difficult decision, I was running out of legal options to remain in the US, I could simply go underground as an illegal alien, I could file for citizenship through my fiancée (after we were married) or I could go to court and challenge the Immigration and Naturalization’s deportation orders. I chose to go to court even though it was frickin’ expensive as hell, and that was for a lawyer who would take the case only if I did the leg work and the research. Because of a civil war where I came from I was seeking asylum.

Fast forward to the court date. We walk into court and my lawyer mentions that there is one particular judge he is hoping will not be the one to hear my case. Sure enough as we turn the corner, my attorney goes “shit”, it is him. So from the start a situation that I was incredibly nervous about has just taken a turn for the worse. As the hearing is called to order, the government presented its case first for about 20 minutes. Then my attorney presented my case and I was put on the witness stand. Then I realized why my attorney did not want this judge.

My attorney questioned me for about a half hour, and then I started to get up from the witness stand (without being dismissed – wasn’t familiar with courtroom etiquette), the judge goes “young man please remain on the stand, I have questions for you.” The judge then proceeded to question me for 3 hours. 3 hours of intense, in depth grilling. As the grilling goes on from time to I would glance at the govt attorney and seethe inside as he sat there with a smug look on his face.

Finally, the govt delivered its closing argument, during that time, my attorney glances over at the notes I have prepared and asks me if he can use my notes for the closing argument as they state the case better than his own notes. By this point I figured I would be lucky to just be denied asylum, a more likely scenario might involve the judge personally driving me to O’Hare airport and deporting me himself. After my attorney presented his closing arguments the judge adjourned court for 2 hours.

During the break my fiancée asked my attorney what he thinks the chances are that we would win the case. He somberly told us – we were more than likely looking at a denial of asylum in this case, he said given the many times he had argued before this judge his experience was telling him, the ruling would probably go against us. When we returned to the court and the judge began to read his ruling, we all figured we had lost. The judge basically was saying that in so much as there was a civil war raging in my country, the entire country was not engulfed by war, so in theory I should be able to return there and find somewhat of a safe haven.

Then he said, “In conclusion, while I had not proven that my life was in imminent grave danger, he was extremely satisfied that I was being a very productive member of society, and the government had not proven sufficient cause for him to deny me asylum, so he was in fact granting me asylum.”

My whole point for rambling on here is that Jeff Toobin and the other sensationalists out there who already know how the court is going rule need to sit back and shut up. We need more reporting and less sensationalism. And to those who are disheartened, it is not over by far, keep the faith, there will always be twists and turns, that is inevitable, but you must keep the faith.

I would bet you Mitt Romney’s $10,000 that everyone of the doomsday predictors would have also predicted that there was no way in hell a black guy, with the middle name Hussein who was only a state senator in 2004 would ascend to the presidency in 2008, and execute the duties of said office in a manner that in my opinion puts him in the top 5% of POTUSes this nation has had.

PS A quick update to the story, it’s been about 16 years since that court hearing and the fiancee and I got married two years later and now have two boys 11 and 9, and I am a citizen. It took 14 years to get my citizenship and even then, as I said, there will always be twists and turns – during the swearing in ceremony a fire broke out in the building and we had to leave the facility for about and hour while the fire dept fixed things. But it all worked out.

rise and shine

Flickr

****

NYT Editorial: In ruling on the constitutionality of requiring most Americans to obtain health insurance, the Supreme Court faces a central test: whether it will recognize limits on its own authority to overturn well-founded acts of Congress.

… The court has no authority under the Constitution to judge the merits or effectiveness of the health care law. That is Congress’s job.

…. If the Supreme Court hews to established law, the only question it must answer in this case is modest: Did Congress have a rational basis for concluding that the economic effects of a broken health care system warranted a national solution? The answer is incontrovertibly yes.

Full editorial here

****

****

Greg Sargent: If you want to understand what’s really at stake in the battle over Obamacare you need to watch Mitt Romney’s appearance on Jay Leno last night.

It comes down to this: Should the federal government play any meaningful role at all in helping the millions of uninsured who can’t get coverage — particularly those with preexisting conditions?

On Leno, Romney repeated his vow to transfer health reform back to the states. But he was also repeatedly pressed to say what he would do for those with preexisting conditions if Obamacare were repealed. Without saying how, Romney replied that people with preexisting conditions should continue to get insurance — as long as they’ve been insured in the past. He refused to say what should be done about those who have never had insurance.

More here

****

****

OFA Store

****

The Week

****

Washington Post: Half of all Americans now express unfavorable views of Mitt Romney, a new high for the GOP presidential hopeful in Washington Post-ABC News polling…

….. Negative impressions are up eight percentage points in the past week, nudging past the previous high …. 50 percent of all adults and 52 percent of registered voters express unfavorable opinions of Romney…

…. 53 percent of Americans hold favorable views of the president; for Romney, that number slides to 34 percent …Romney is underwater with independents: 35 percent view him favorably, 52 percent unfavorably.

More here

****

****

TPM: A set of three new swing state polls from Quinnipiac University show President Obama leading Mitt Romney in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. His smallest lead is in Pennsylvania, where Obama holds a small three point advantage at 45 – 42, and he leads in Ohio 47 – 41. Obama leads outside the margin of error in Florida, a state which Romney has done well in previously, at 49 – 42.

“President Barack Obama is on a roll in the key swing states. If the election were today, he would carry at least two states. And if history repeats itself, that means he would be re- elected,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in a release. “The biggest reason for the president’s improving prospects probably is the economy. Roughly six in 10 voters in all three states think the economy is recovering. Moreover, voters blame the oil companies and oil-producing countries for the rise in gasoline prices and only about one in six voters blame them on President Obama.”

****

USA Today: The White House is again unleashing Vice President Joe Biden on the campaign trail, this time to attack Mitt Romney over manufacturing policy …. It’s the third in a series of four campaign speeches Biden is delivering on the economy. The vice president previously discussed the auto bailout in Ohio and Medicare policy in Florida, attacking Romney and other Republican candidates along the way.

Today at PCT Engineered Systems in Davenport, Iowa Biden plans to stress the 430,000 new manufacturing jobs created since January of 2010 …. The Obama campaign has released other excerpts from Biden’s speech:

“Mitt Romney has been remarkably consistent – as an individual investor, a businessman, as Governor of Massachusetts, and now as a candidate for President.

Remarkably consistent. Consistently wrong.”

More here

****

Pinterest

Washington Post: The Obama 2012 campaign unveiled a Barack Obama Pinterest page on Tuesday, taking advantage of the fast-growing social network by sharing images of Obama and his family, campaign supporters and paraphernalia and visuals that support administration policies.

The page, run by the Obama 2012 campaign staff, features eight “boards.” (For those of you not among the 17.8 million Pinterest users last month, boards are like folders where users categorize “pins,” or images they collect and share on the site).

Five of the boards feature lighter fare: ”Obama-inspired recipes” shows the family chili recipe and cupcakes with images of the president on them. The first family and pets wearing Obama gear get their own boards, and merchandise from the Obama campaign store is featured in another. The more substantive boards include pinned infographics on job growth and the health-care act, and another with images of people supporting or affected by the administration’s initiatives.

More here

****

****

MTV: Michelle Obama will appear at Nickelodeon’s 25th annual Kids’ Choice Awards to present a special award to Taylor Swift. The first lady will be on hand to honor Swift with the Big Help Award, in recognition of her philanthropic efforts, including work with U.S. tornado and flood survivors. Obama herself was the recipient of the award in 2010, in recognition of her Let’s Move! Campaign…

…. The 25th annual Kids’ Choice Awards in Los Angeles air live Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on Nickelodeon.

More here

****

Here’s the link to Collegekay’s fundraiser

****

Morning everyone 😉