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Title: The King v. Burwell Aftermath
Source:
Breitbart
URL Source: http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern ... /the-king-v-burwell-aftermath/
Published: Jun 25, 2015
Author: John Hayward
Post Date: 2015-06-26 09:03:32 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 2865
Comments: 32
As Chief Justice Roberts makes abundantly clear in his ruling, he looked at politics, not the law, concluding that upholding the clear text of the Affordable Care Act would have killed it, and inflicted chaos on a health insurance system already driven mad by ObamaCare. He made a political judgment – with copious pressure from President Obama and his followers, and the weight of his own previous decision to put politics above the law to preserve the individual mandate – that the Affordable Care Act was a writ of nearly-unlimited power to do what its framers say they want to accomplish today, not a law with a balance of both power and responsibility based on what it said at the moment it was signed. This is a very bad precedent to set, especially if Roberts’ reasoning is followed to the conclusion that the bigger and more ambiguously-written a law is, the more untrammeled executive power it grants. No matter what ultimately becomes of ObamaCare, that will come back to haunt us in many other contexts in the future. As for the political fallout from the decision, much of the punditry written beforehand assumed the federal subsidies would fall, and Republicans would either be muscled into passing a quick fix to restore them, or face a presidential campaign season filled with tinkly-piano ads about how mean old Republicans took away Mommy’s health care subsidies. It really is hard to escape the conclusion that this would have been the worst possible political outcome for the GOP – watching the marshmallow leadership fall all over themselves to get a clean subsidy fix passed before they jetted off for summer vacation would have driven the GOP base – and the millions of persuadable American voters suffering higher premiums, higher deductibles, worse access to providers, and paying taxes to subsidize other peoples’ plans – out of their minds. I am of the opinion that tough political outcomes are a burden worth bearing to preserve the rule of law, but here we are instead: Democrats doing a creepy “ALL DEBATE IS NOW OVER!” victory dance to celebrate the Constitution-smashing preservation of a law the American people don’t like, whose passage has already blown them into a congressional minority, and which they own 100 percent. It would be easier to maintain optimism about Republicans fighting on such favorable political terrain if they had demonstrated an institutional talent for fighting winning battles on solid ground, and doing important things with the power thus obtained. The American people are getting a raw deal out of ObamaCare, but the President was not wrong when he crowed today that the law is working the way he wanted it to. The American system has been bent and twisted beyond recognition by the agonizing pain of digesting a law that conflicts with such basic values as the freedom of religion, and even the freedom to decline engaging in commerce. The “consent of the governed” matters less than ever. The amount of money sucked down by ObamaCare and distributed to the government’s Little Partners in the insurance industry is staggering. A huge swath of the formerly independent middle class is now helplessly dependent on subsidy payments, whose termination can be threatened if they get any funny ideas about putting the Leviathan State on a diet. The price Democrats paid for all that was the loss of seats in a national legislature they have marginalized, to the point President Obama simply dismissed the 2014 midterm elections by declaring he would exercise power on behalf of the people who didn’t vote. The Roberts decision renders the plain text of laws less meaningful than what the executive branch desires. If we end up with a Democrat president and one or both houses of Congress in Republican hands next time, the importance of Congress will be further diminished. It’s all been a bit rough on the individual Democrats who lost their seats over ObamaCare, but don’t worry – they parlayed their years of “service” into very comfortable fortunes and parasitic post-congressional careers, they’ll be just fine. The GOP leadership doesn’t seem powerfully inclined to defend the prerogatives of Congress or uphold the rule of law. With law out of the picture, they had better understand how everything is about politics and power now. The gloves need to come off. The Left will redouble its efforts to silence and marginalize Americans who are suffering under ObamaCare. Republicans should demolish that scam with vigor. Get those people out there to talk about their huge premium hikes, ridiculous deductible payments, and restricted doctor networks. Make sure they mention how good they had it before ObamaCare came along. Spotlight every state exchange failure, every insurance company collapse, every shuttered hospital, every study that shows how emergency rooms are being abused worse than ever. (That last bit is important, because for a lot of average voters, the argument that mandatory insurance coverage was the only way to control cost-shifting was one of the most sensible cases made in favor of ObamaCare.) It will be a lot to hope for the GOP to consolidate behind a unified repeal proposal and ObamaCare alternative, especially during a presidential race when every candidate wants to tout their fix, but I’d say one the presidential candidate is determined, the rest of the GOP would be well advised to close ranks behind their preferred proposal. The American people really do respond to firm, clear promises, as the Republicans’ 2014 midterm sweep demonstrated. (Let us avoid contemplating what they’ve actually been doing with the congressional majorities they asked America for, except to understand it as an example of what should be avoided in 2017.) A clear statement of ObamaCare’s problems, combined with a logical case for the alternative, is salable political product. Keeping those promises in 2017 would allow Republicans to make a devastating case that they can be trusted, in a way the Democrats who desperately need everyone to forget ObamaCare’s 2010 promises cannot. The Left loves their Alinksy tactics, their Cloward-Piven attacks – creating chaos and then offering bigger government as the only solution, finding the weak points in private systems and ruthlessly attacking them. The Right can do the same thing. Exploit the weaknesses in ObamaCare without mercy. Throw the Roberts decision back in the Left’s face at every opportunity – we can write ambiguous laws and interpret them as we see fit, too! Play up the complaints, unrelentingly hold ObamaCare up to the standards set when it was passed – never let the Left-media convince you those “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” clips are past their sell-by dates. ObamaCare was always designed to fail, and usher in single-payer health care. The Left’s panic at stress moments when it looked like ObamaCare would collapse prematurely was very instructive. Don’t let this thing run its course, especially since the Roberts decision could be interpreted as allowing much of single-payer to be imposed by executive fiat without any new legislation passed. Why not? The “context” of the ACA was to give everyone health care, right? If this monstrous law implodes, why should any new legislation be necessary to nationalize health insurance completely, followed by medicine itself? There must be some more “ambiguous” language in there that could be stretched to the necessary dimensions. Aggressively get Democrats on the record defending ObamaCare, and sneering at the people who don’t like it. It won’t be hard to do – there are few things more ugly and callous than a Democrat telling working people struggling with 150 percent premium hikes to get bent, because their sacrifice is necessary to give the Democrats’ preferred constituents a free lunch. It will be especially easy to squeeze such brutal sound bites out of Hillary Clinton – she once brushed off the economic chaos that would be caused by her own health care power grab by snarling that she’s not responsible for the collapse of “undercapitalized” businesses. This sort of thing is her weak spot. Hit it hard. Most people get a queasy feeling when they hear the phrase “the ends justify the means.” They know that’s wrong, and they know those words have been cited to justify tyranny and evil. The Roberts decision is wholly based on that idea. The American system was founded on the opposite ideal: that the ends do not justify the means, the system should not be shredded to impose a “good idea” with haste, the rule of law is more important than any goal that could be achieved by discarding it. A great deal of the Left’s moaning about “divisive” politics is a demand for conservatives and taxpaying Americans to roll over and play dead, offering no resistance to fierce liberal armies marching over them. ObamaCare was a declaration of war against the American middle class, and those trumpets are sounding louder than ever after the Roberts decision in King v. Burwell, which takes liberty and dignity away from individuals and gives it to politicians and bureaucrats, because it says they must be given as much power as they need to accomplish their vaguely-defined ends, and that power has to come from somewhere. Greater power means less freedom, always. A “law” that imposes no restraint or obligation on the government, not even the need to respect the plain text of the law itself, contains a payload of power that should be unacceptable to every patriotic American. Sometimes Republicans talk about the Constitution as an object of worship, an abstract idea they hold in reverence, without discussing its practical effect upon the real world. Well, Chief Justice Roberts just gave us a very powerful example of how the abandonment of Constitutional principle disrupts the everyday lives of ordinary people. Use it. Make that case properly to voters, let them know just how much power the Supreme Court and Big Government are seizing, and put the rule of law on the ballot. And for the sake of the Republic, Republicans, don’t mumble or stammer when you do it. 
One of the core problems with a decision like the Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell ruling is that it does the opposite of what a Supreme Court presided over by justices-for-life is supposed to do.
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#1. To: cranky (#0)
An excellent theory,and one sure to work if only we had an actual opposition party to put it into play. Instead what we have are alleged Republicans who are nothing more than actors playing a role to fool the rubes in public,but Dims at heart in private. Mostly due to leftist Dims switching parties years ago when the Dim Party was in trouble so they could stay in office,and actual Republicans who have been compromised and/or blackmailed to the point where they have no free will. Big Massa Gubbermint has used tax money to buy voters,and now the circle is complete. They have advanced their cause to the point where to survive and make sure your family has a place to live,work,go to school,and get medical care,you HAVE to become a cog in their machine. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
Another good one Cranky...thanks.
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved. (Psalm 62:1-2)
No, they don't. There are three branches of government: Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The Executive branch is controlled by the Democrats. That's 1/3. At the time of the passage of ObamaCare, the Democrats controlled the Legislature. But did they have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate? If not, then the Democrats controlled only half the Legislature, because the Senate can pass nothing if filibustered. I have not gone back to see if the Democrats in fact had 60 seats in the Senate when they passed ObamaCare. If they did not, then the fact is that the Democratic House passed ObamaCare, and the Republicans in the Senate allowed it to be passed as well.] Which means that, if they had 60 Democrats, the Democrats had another third of the power, but if they didn't (and I don't think they did, they had only 1/6th of the power - the House - and it only got through the Senate because the Republicans did not enforce a filibuster. Which would assign 1/6 of the blame to the Republicans, because Obamacare passed the Senate. The Judiciary has been continuously controlled by the Republicans throughout the period. The Republican- controlled Supreme Court has twice ratified Obamacare. That's 1/3rd of the power. So no, the Democrats do not "100% own" Obamacare, that's a Republican political lie to divert blame. The Republicans own at least 33% of Obamacare, because the Republican Supreme Court ratified it. And depending on whether or not the Republicans had 41 Senators when Obamacare passed, the Republicans could own another 17% of it, for it could not have cleared the Senate without Republican help. So, the total Republican responsibility for Obamacare is IN FACT between 33% and 50%. Now I'm going to look up the composition of the Senate when Obamacare passed, to see if there were at least 41 Republicans. If there were, the Republicans are half responsible for ObamaCare. If there were not, then the Republicans are one third responsible for it. Republicans cannot escape responsibility for what a Republican Supreme Court does. Democrat judges are selected by Democrat Presidents to reliably reflect Democrat values, and they do. Republican judicial appointees are the responsibility of the Republican Party. What a Republican Supreme Court does is as attributable to Republicans as what Democrat judges do is attributable to Democrats. Republicans pretend that is not so, because were the magnitude of the reality is fully realized by conservatives, they would see that the Republican party does not, in fact, represent them and they would leave it. As they should.
Although it was the U.S. Supreme Court, interpreting the law as written by the Democrats, who did it, yes, the press would have hung this on the Republicans. So, the only good thing to come out of the court's decision is that Obama and the Democrats own Obamacare. Now the Republicans can blame, say, rising premiums on this decision. Or higher deductibles. Or higher co- pays. Or more expensive medicines. Or longer wait times. Or closed hospitals. Even global warming. Every single f**king thing bad that happens in the healthcare industry needs to be blamed on Obamacare. They own it. They deserve it.
They did. Meaning they're 100% responsible for the legislation. More importantly, not one Republican voted for it. The judiciary is (supposedly) non-partisan and simply affirmed the legislation as constitutional.
Some they bought. Most they imported. There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can add and those that can't
And had the Supreme Court not ratified it, the press would have portrayed the Republicans as 100% responsible for ending the subsidies -- despite the fact that the Democrats wrote the legislation denying those subsidies non-state-run exchanges.
It's just one guy's opinion (and a white guy, at that) but I happen to agree with a lot of it. There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can add and those that can't
And they are proud of it and say so publicly. Øbama claimed during his rub-your-nose-in-it victory speech no less that six time Øbamacare is working just as he planned all along. Oddly enough, he wasn't lying. There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can add and those that can't
If, in the future, cooler heads ever have the opportunity to once again prevail, Roberts' legacy and reputation will be a wreckage. My legal experience is limited to business dealings and contract negotiations - yet even I can see the tortured, wrong and simply asinine "reasoning" behind much of his writing the last few years.
True. It's working just as he planned. Not how he said it would work, but as he planned.
I don't think there will ever be wholesale changes or repeals of the law as long as the uber-legislator sits as Chief Justice . At this point the law is as much his creation as the Dems . I think the Repubs will nibble at the edges and change some aspects of the law. But the framework is in place for the total takeover of health care . All they need to do now is get rid of the middle men . The suckers in the Insurance industry that sold their souls for the promise of big rewards are going to feel the wrath of the masses as they get blamed for all the Obamacare failings .
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The Roe v Wade court had more reasoning. At least they tried. Roberts simply re-wrote the legislation to make it constitutional -- changing "penalty" to "tax" and "established by the states" to "established by anyone".
SCOTUScare, as Scalia refers to it. There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can add and those that can't
With the added benefit of making Congress moot. Ya gotta love it. There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can add and those that can't
The judiciary is not nonpartisan and it never has been Justices are political appointees, and ratified and removed through a political process. I live in the real world, and in the real world judges are politicians. Living in a sometimes fantasy/sometimes real world allows Republicans to blame Democrats for everything and then ignore Republican institutions like the Supreme Court when IT does things - but that's a lie Republicans tell to themselves. They believe it too. But I don't lie to myself. Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or Sotomayor, or Kagan a neutral and impartial judge? Of course not. They're Democrats, appointed by Democrats to judicially advance a Democrat agenda. The world does not suddenly change and become fourth grade civics when it's Republican appointees. Judges are politicians. They're the most permanent figures of each political party, with the greatest partisan power. And therefore what Judges do, especially, is ascribable to the perspicacity of the party that appointed to them. Where are the Democrat judges who ever drift and become paragons of Republican causes? Never happens. Republicans routinely do it BECAUSE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY THAT APPOINTS THEM REALLY IS WHERE THEY ARE, and NOT really where the duped rube Republican voters are convinced they are. The Republican Party, in the Supreme Court, ratified Obamacare and Gay Marriage. And now we'll see a bunch of rubes, here, writhe and scream that the Democrats did something, and refuse to live in realityville and open their eyes and blame the Republicans for what they've done.
The Republicans own at least 33% of Obamacare, because the Republican Supreme Court ratified it. And depending on whether or not the Republicans had 41 Senators when Obamacare passed, the Republicans could own another 17% of it, for it could not have cleared the Senate without Republican help. Obamacare (as it is nicknamed) is 100% The Republican plan. It was invented by Republicans based on their ideology and advocated by such right wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and a GOP gov named Romney implamented it with much fanfare and success in Mass. See, the stupid Bush era Republicans had a freak out over Obama and Obama used that to his advantage. People forget - and by people I mostly mean the Republican base - that there were 2 plans being looked at for universal health care - 1 was Romney care and the other was the Medicare for all plan aka Single Payer. When all those "Republican" demonstrators were protesting outside of congress during the Obamacare debate they had signs up against socialism. Why? Because the GOP protesting organizers thought Obama would push for the Pelosi single payer "socialist" plan and not the Republican Romneycare plan. This went on long enough to where the Right Wing Radio and Right Wing Internet started to call BOTH plans socialist and lost the ability to differentiate. Obama triangulated and backed the Republican plan. Why? Because his people rightly guess Romney was going to be the next nominee. In fact the GOP actually were planning on having the Romney plan be what Romney would run against because they thought Obama would back the Single Payer option. This they thought would create a good contrast between the two. But by Obama picking the Romney version of health care he smartly disarmed the Republicans. The Republicans had become so emotionally invested in defeating Obama - especially on the talk show radio base level - that they could not support Obama supporting the GOP plan. The other reasons Obama picked the plan is as the president he is the actual head of his own party and can get them to vote yes against their own version. He also thought to steal some GOP votes and thus weaken the GOP by dividing them. Like I said though, by this time the GOP was having a (probably racially underlined) freakout and could not support their own idea if Obama was for it. They had to pretend they always were against what became known as Obamacare even though Obamacare was first proposed by Sen Dole when he ran for president and it was an idea that dated back to Republican president Teddy Roosevelt. So in reality, to sum up, Obamacare is 100% the GOP's "fault" since it was their plan to begin with. All Obama did was pass the Republican health plan.
It was the Democrat wing of the Republicrat Party that took a bill, gutted the text and replaced it with Øbamacare. And it was the Democrat wing of the Republicrat Party that called for a vote and passed Øbamacare without a single Republican vote. At least, that's my recollection. The Republican wing of the Republicrat Party simply wasn't needed for this particular act in our political theater. But had more votes been needed, I suspect those votes would have been readily available. There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can add and those that can't
Justice Kennedy was appointed by Ronald Reagan. So was O'Connor, who along with Kennedy built a rampart around abortion, but she's gone. Chief Justice Roberts, who gave us ObamaCare twice, wrote both opinions, was appointed by W. The Republican wing of the Republican party did its job. No good is served by trying to protect some misguided idea of Republican "honor". That party is a dungheap. If conservative men and women want to protect their honor, they need to get OUT of that party and start a new one. All of the "It's useless" arguments don't work, and can't, when you've got Roe and Casey, General Amnesty, Kelo, Patriot Act, Romneycare and ObamaCare 1 and 2, and now gay marriage, all squarely at the feet of the Republican Party. The final deciders who made all of those things happen are Republicans. Upright people must stop lying to themselves, and if leaving the GOP means being ineffective, being IN the GOP has not been effective either.
You act like a democrat propagandist. Which is why you dodged my question the other day.
The decision was mainly by democrats. If the democrats
who you love so much, except abortion, had not blocked Bork this decision
wouldn't be there. So get your head out of your ass. If you want to blame
someone blame women. More women voted for it then Republican appointed
assholes. There was no woman against it. Not one. I speak freely too.
IF this upsets you I don't care.
What in fact is the extent of Roman Catholic responsibility? (Kennedy, Roberts, the "Wise Latina"?) Responsibility of liberal Jews (Bader-Witchburg, Breyer, Humpty-Dumpty) and Homosexuals (Roberts, Wise Latina [Sotomayor], Kagen [Humpty-Dumpty], and Man-Haters (Witchburg, Wise-Latina, Humpty-Dumpty)? Furthermore -- if we are going to point political fingers, is it fair to pretend the Catholic responsibility doesn't exists either in *this* case or the gay marriage case? (Btw, isn't it ironic NO Protestant "Fundies" were allowed to vote either case as SC Justices because THEY are apparently persona non grata to the elites? Hmmm....) I've said it before - so goes the Christian in America, so goes...America.
*ahem*.... WHERE are the Democrats in your food-chain of decision-making?
Have it your own way. You seem impervious to facts. There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can add and those that can't
I've never found Democrats to be long on facts the way I am. I didn't dodge your question. I probably didn't see it. I've been traveling a lot, and when something controversial comes on the board and I comment, I get an avalanche of nastygrams. I find them depressing and stop reading after a certain point. So, I did not dodge your question - I missed it. I suppose we could go back to whatever it was. But I'll cut to the chase of many comments: People who have declared their allegiance to the Republican Party act exactly like the fools who do the same for the Democrats, and for the most part the reason is because they ARE fools. They don't think. They emote. And therefore, when their party is attacked for being the shit-show that it objectively is, Republicans freak out and bellow and rage and insult and, basically, act just like they say Democrats act. And Republicans are as blind to their own idiot behavior as Democrats are. I have zero loyalty to either party, because the policies of both parties are opposed to my interests, or because they are grotesquely immoral. It's real easy for Democrats to see the evil in Republicans, and vice versa, and really hard for them to see it in themselves. Watch religious apologists do mental gymnastics trying to defend the historical evils of their denomination to see the same sad sorry behavior on display. Republicans rage at me because I put a laser sight dot right on the aspects of Republican policy that are a lie and failure, and I keep firing right exactly at that spot, and I keep blasting holes in it. Nobody can ANSWER the points I make, because they're true. So they attack me…by calling me a Democrat. Democrats dismiss me as an illogical thinker and deluded because of my tenacious testimony about God. And people of various religions who think they've got the truth because they believe their doctrines call me a deceiver. But all I do is direct my fire directly at the unacceptable aspects of the parties, and the religions. I do the same thing in legal and compliance investigations. I point straight at the indefensible weak spot and hammer on that, because that is where the defense breaks. And I get ad hominem from left right and center because people don't like to lose, and they don't like for the institutions in which they have - inappropriately - reposed too much faith to be flayed alive before them. But that is what I do, and believe it or not, I do it for YOUR good. Example: there are a lot of elderly men on this site who rage against Medicare and Social Security and Public Education. But those men can read because of public education, and many got their houses and higher educations through the GI Bill, and if it were not for Medicare and Social Security, they would be destitute, dead, or living in their children's broom closets. The economic realities of industrialized society are not a matter of ideological fashion. They are hard, immutable realities. The question, then, is how to address those realities. Republicans here, and Democrats elsewhere, and Libertarians, prefer to substitute a different universe for the real one, and to have their own facts. And that is what I torpedo every time, because on the real facts, their causes lose. They have to rethink. Rethinking is painful. The service I do is provide the pain, the stubborn, relentless, beating pain of facing facts that are different from what one WANTS to believe. Over time, people do change. They hate ME anyway, but they change and adopt more reasonable stances elsewhere. It is not REASONABLE for middle class and working class American men to be devoted to the Republican Party. That party hasn't done anything to merit such loyalty. If the middle class and working class American men need to have some obnoxious John Adams type to just keep pointing out the flaws over and over again…well, they DO need it, and that is the service I provide. For no thanks. An example from what is now probably a couple of months ago; the desperate and pathetic attempt to discredit me as a "liar" for saying that Roe court was Republicans. Somebody went and found party affiliations. But that's piffle. The Presidents are partisan, and their appointments are partisan. Political parties are accountable for the justices they nominate. If Republicans are nominating nominal "Democrats" it is either because these "Democrats" in fact reliably reflect the ideology of the Republicans nominating them, or the Republican party that made and sustained the nominations of ideological and partisan enemies are brain-dead morons who show such SPECTACULAR stupidity that Republican rank and file should abandon them. Which is it? Ronald Reagan was a union leader and an FDR Democrat. He changed parties in the 1960s. The Republican Party hated him and resisted him. He was elected President by the middle class, including massive numbers of cross-over Reagan Democrats. Very pointedly, Reagan upheld Social Security, and ran Obama-sized budget deficits, and put O'Connor and Kennedy on the Supreme Court. He was always an FDR Democrat. The Democrat Party went farther to the Left and went nuts in the 1960s. Reagan remained a New Deal Democrat and an FDR foreign-interventionist Democrat: we should recall that in the 1930s and early 1940s, the Republicans were the isolationists. FDR was doing all sorts of things to get America into the war, because he knew it had to be fought. Reagan was just precisely in that FDR mode, and THAT is why the Republican Establishment hated him and imposed the Bushes on him. So, Reagan was a "Republican", but look at his policies. Uphold Social Security and Medicare untouched. That's FDR. Interventionist foreign policy. That's FDR. As governor of California, he signed abortion rights into law, and as President he put O'Connor and Kennedy on the Supreme Court - he put two pro-choicers on for the one ostensibly pro-lifer he put on there. He ran the interventionist foreign policy of the FDR mode. And he gave blanket amnesty to the illegal aliens. And he initiated NAFTA. When Gorbachev came to the table to deal, he dealt. In short, Reagan was an FDR Democrat. The Democrats moved on to being outright loons in the 1960s. He always said "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me", and he meant it too. But he was a Republican, and he won elections for the GOP, by bringing in lots of Democrat voters. And so the Republicans loved him. I voted for him too, and of the Republican Presidents of my voting life, he was certainly the best. But truth is that if one stands for the actual POLICIES of Reagan today, one will be labelled a liberal Democrat (as I often do). This is simply Republican blindness, not some inability to perceive things on my part. I don't like the Democrats. They love abortion. They love war as much as the Republicans have (Obama ran on ending the war - 6 years on we're in as deep as ever). They love speech codes and have a totalitarian mindset. But how many Democrats are there on this website? The people here are Republicans, aging Republican males. THIS audience needs to wake up out of its torpor, and to do that they need to see the flaws of the party to which THEY have foolishly given their allegiance. Trump is not really my kind of guy, but he's much more my kind of guy than any of these milquetoast bought-and-paid for Republican empty suits, or the harridan running on the other side. So I support Trump BECAUSE he's not a Republican or a Democrat. His policies are unorthodox. Some are dumb, but even the dumb ones are smarter than the tomfoolery being ladled up by the Republicans, again. As for the Democrats, I'll leave the fascism to places like China.
So, I did not dodge your question - I missed it. It's ok. I don't even remember exactly now.
I'm reading. But 300 billion isn't close to 2 trillion. Even adjusted for inflation. Reagans deficits were really the democratic deficits. As most of it was from socialist security and other democrat give away programs. Also they renigged on passing the tax cuts that Reagan was told he would get.
I like him too. Always have. Even more now. I don't even have to agree with him on everything. Because I know he is pro America. It would be interesting to live in America again.
So I support Trump BECAUSE he's not a Republican or a Democrat. His policies are unorthodox. Some are dumb, but even the dumb ones are smarter than the tomfoolery being ladled up by the Republicans, again. As for the Democrats, I'll leave the fascism to places like China. I agree.
"They"? The Republican Party controlled the Supreme Court and the White House throughout Reagan's term, and the Senate during a substantial portion of it. And when the Democrats took back the Senate, they never held a filibuster-proof Senate. Today, Republicans scream at Obama, but Obama has NEVER controlled the Supreme Court, not one day since he took office, and he doesn't control either house of Congress either. The Republicans control everything except the White House. So, if you're going to blame the Democrats for Reagan's budgets, even though Republicans controlled the Executive, the Judiciary and half of Congress, who gets the blame today, then, when Democrats control only the White House? Reagan was always an FDR Democrat. That's what made him great: the policies he pitched were right across the middle of the plate for the benefit of the majority of the American people. The Republicans skew to the super-rich. The Democrats skew to ethnic games.
Democrats.
Democrats only controlled the House. Reagan controlled the White House, Supreme Court and the Senate. It was Reagan, not the Democrats. The Democrats are just an excuse for Republicans to not hold their own party responsible for what it does. Today, it's "Obama", even though the Republicans control Congress and the Supreme Court. In other words, when Reagan controlled everything BUT the House, Republicans say it was "Democrats". But when Republicans control everything BUT the White House itself, Republicans STILL say it's "Democrats". Apparently, Democrats can get their agenda done with just fragments of power, one branch, but Republicans require control of the whole government - all three branches - to get anything they promise done. Well, they DID control all three branches under W...and they enacted No Child Left behind, lost the Wars, gave us the Patriot Act and the massive loss of civil liberties, established all sorts of bad "free" trade agreements, and left the border open. No, it's not Democrats. The problem is Republicans. Always has been. Rank and file Republican voters need to open their eyes and get out of that party. All they do by voting Republican is develop the power of China.
The Left loves their Alinksy tactics, their Cloward-Piven attacks – creating chaos and then offering bigger government as the only solution, finding the weak points in private systems and ruthlessly attacking them. The Right can do the same thing. Exploit the weaknesses in ObamaCare without mercy. Throw the Roberts decision back in the Left’s face at every opportunity – we can write ambiguous laws and interpret them as we see fit, too! Play up the complaints, unrelentingly hold ObamaCare up to the standards set when it was passed – never let the Left-media convince you those “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” clips are past their sell-by dates.
#2. To: cranky, tomder55 (#0)
#3. To: cranky (#0)
"which they [Democrats] own 100%"
#4. To: cranky (#0)
"face a presidential campaign season filled with tinkly-piano ads about how mean old Republicans took away Mommy’s health care subsidies."
#5. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
"I have not gone back to see if the Democrats in fact had 60 seats in the Senate when they passed ObamaCare."
#6. To: sneakypete (#1)
Big Massa Gubbermint has used tax money to buy voters,and now the circle is complete. They have advanced their cause to the point where to survive and make sure your family has a place to live,work,go to school,and get medical care,you HAVE to become a cog in their machine.
#7. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
"The Republicans own at least 33% of Obamacare, because the Republican Supreme Court ratified it."
#8. To: redleghunter (#2)
Another good one Cranky...thanks.
#9. To: misterwhite (#4)
Every single f**king thing bad that happens in the healthcare industry needs to be blamed on Obamacare. They own it. They deserve it.
#10. To: cranky (#0)
#11. To: cranky (#9)
"Oddly enough, he wasn't lying."
#12. To: cranky (#0)
#13. To: Hank Rearden (#10)
"yet even I can see the tortured, wrong and simply asinine "reasoning" behind much of his writing the last few years."
#14. To: tomder55 (#12)
At this point the law is as much his creation as the Dems .
#15. To: misterwhite (#11)
True. It's working just as he planned.
#16. To: misterwhite (#5)
#17. To: Vicomte13, cranky (#3)
(Edited)
o no, the Democrats do not "100% own" Obamacare, that's a Republican political lie to divert blame.
#18. To: Vicomte13 (#16)
the Democrats did something
#19. To: cranky (#18)
The Republican wing of the Republicrat Party simply wasn't needed...
#20. To: Vicomte13 (#19)
#21. To: Vicomte13 (#19)
marriage, all squarely at the feet of the Republican Party.
#22. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter, tomder55 (#3)
(Edited)
The total Republican responsibility for Obamacare is IN FACT between 33% and 50%.
#23. To: Vicomte13 (#19)
...When you've got Roe and Casey, General Amnesty, Kelo, Patriot Act, Romneycare and ObamaCare 1 and 2, and now gay marriage, all squarely at the feet of the Republican Party. The final deciders who made all of those things happen are Republicans.
#24. To: Vicomte13 (#19)
all squarely at the feet of the Republican Party
#25. To: A K A Stone (#20)
You act like a Democrat propagandist. Which is why you dodged my question the other day.
#26. To: Vicomte13 (#25)
I didn't dodge your question. I probably didn't see it. I've been traveling a lot, and when something controversial comes on the board and I comment, I get an avalanche of nastygrams. I find them depressing and stop reading after a certain point.
#27. To: Vicomte13 (#25)
Reagan upheld Social Security, and ran Obama-sized budget deficits,
#28. To: Vicomte13 (#25)
So I support Trump BECAUSE he's not a Republican or a Democrat. His policies are unorthodox. Some are dumb, but even the dumb ones are smarter than the tomfoolery being ladled up by the Republicans, again. As for the Democrats, I'll leave the fascism to places like China.
#29. To: Vicomte13 (#25)
Trump is not really my kind of guy, but he's much more my kind of guy than any of these milquetoast bought-and-paid for Republican empty suits, or the harridan running on the other side.
#30. To: A K A Stone (#27)
#31. To: Vicomte13 (#30)
"They"?
#32. To: A K A Stone (#31)
Democrats.
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