The Commentariat -- January 21
** Best Blogpost Ever on Court Challenges to the Affordable Care Law. Rick Ungar of Forbes (of all places), in a post titled, "Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance...":
In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed - 'An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.' The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.
Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution.
Steve Benen on Joe Lieberman -- still able to get "foreign policy AND feminism wrong at the same time."
I'm posting this for the behind-the-scenes stuff, which I love:
CW: Mary Williams Walsh of the New York Times writes what I think is an alarming report on what some policymakers are advocating for cash-strapped states: bankruptcy, including reneging on pension obligations to retirees. My friend Peter S. directs you to the most recommended comment by Zeppo.
Jeffrey Immelt in a Washington Post op-ed: "President Obama has asked me to chair his new President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.... The president and I are committed to a candid and full dialogue among business, labor and government...." (See today's news.) ...
... Read Marcy Wheeler on Jeff Immelt: "... no matter how many times Immelt gets up on a podium or in an op-ed and feigns an interest in American jobs, his actions make him the poster child for everything wrong with the U.S. economy right now." Marcy embeds this terrific clip from Bernie Sanders' Senate "filibuster":
... Also, please read
... Pat Garofalo of the Wonk Room: "... due to a corporate tax system that is loophole-ridden and full of giveaways, General Electric pays a pittance in corporate income tax. Though the statutory corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, GE last year paid a paltry 3.6 percent. In 2009, despite making $10.3 billion in pretax income, GE paid nothing in corporate income tax (and, in fact, received $1.1 billion in tax benefits)." ...
... The new chairman of our "Council on Jobs" is what you might accurately call a "jobs-killer."
Noam Scheiber in The New Republic on President Obama's Wall Street Journal op-ed piece re: regulatory reform. Here's the President's piece. Scheiber's analysis is pretty illuminating.
Ezra Klein: "It's the age of civility in American politics, but there's one institution that's been civil all along: the Congressional Budget Office.... The nonpartisan agency ... speaks in the polite language of actuarial tables, refuses to reliably please or disappoint either party and is the closest thing American politics has to an umpire. And the Republicans are getting sick and tired of it."
Jonathan Martin of Politico: Dick Armey to House Republican Tea Party members: "Curb your enthusiasm." Includes three videos of Dick Armey talking, none of which I even clicked on. CW: my friend Kate Madison warned at least a year ago that Armey, a big financial backer of the TP, would try to make regular Republicans out of any tea party members who made it to Congress. Let's see how that goes. ...
... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "House Republican leaders confronted pressure from conservatives on Thursday to take more aggressive steps to cut federal spending, with a large group of lawmakers calling for outlays to be slashed by $2.5 trillion over the next decade, far more than the party has sought so far." ...
... Steve Benen: "The likelihood of these cuts actually passing is non-existent, but it is a helpful snapshot of Republican priorities. But also note perhaps the most important detail about a plan such as this one: it would be devastating for American jobs. Indeed, if lawmakers were to get together to plot how Congress could deliberately increase unemployment, their plan would look an awful lot like this one. The RSC proposal would deliberately fire thousands of civilian workers, force states to make sweeping job cuts, and lay off thousands more who work in transportation and infrastructure." ...
... David Dayan of Firedoglake: "The value in [the Republican Study Committee's spending cuts] document is knowing that the battle lines have been drawn.... The end of the continuing resolution on March 4, as well as the need to increase the debt limit, hang out there over the horizon."
As the Worms Turn. AP: Justices Scalia & Thomas try to explain away their relationship with Charles Koch, one of the brothers who have benefited from the Citzens United ruling, in which Scalia & Thomas were in the majority. The Supremes look shady to me. But you decide. Here's the New York Times' backstory, which I linked to yesterday.
Another reason DADT was stupid. Mark Thompson of Time: "The Government Accountability Office has concluded it cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $200 million to oust 3,664 service personnel for violating the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' law between 2004 to 2009.... That works out to $52,800 per person."
Floyd Norris of the New York Times suggests a new chapter for Gail Collins' proposed book, Everything Bad Is Joe Lieberman's Fault. Norris says had it not been for Lieberman's insistence in 1994 upon allowing fantastical stock-option accounting, "some of the worst excesses of the technology stock bubble might have been avoided."
AP: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords left a Tucson hospital Friday and is being flown to a Houston rehabilitation center for her next steps in her recovery, less than two weeks after the congresswoman was shot in the head. Well-wishers ... lined the ambulance's route between the hospital and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, where Giffords was loaded on a specially outfitted jet." ...
... Washington Post Update: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's transfer Friday from a Tucson trauma center to a Houston hospital went 'flawlessly,' and she will begin rehabilitation right away, doctors said."
Michelle Obama is killing people on the streets! Jason Linkins mocks the Daily Caller's latest lunacy.
President Obama on the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's inauguration. Scroll down for JFK's inaugural address:
Share Article