It appears that Congress is not the only branch with falling poll numbers. According to Pew Research Center, the Supreme Court now is viewed favorable by just roughly 50 percent of the public.
Only fifty-two percent of Americans hold a favorable view of the Supreme Court today. Notably, “[t]here are virtually no partisan differences in views of the Supreme Court: 56% of Republicans, and 52% of both Democrats and independents rate the Supreme Court favorably.” Of course, popularity is not a requirement for the Court, which was given jurists with life tenure to protect it from public opinion. The Court has often been the most unpopular when it has been the most right, such as on desegregation.
Yet, it is striking to see how all three branches remain unpopular with most Americans. Once again, it is striking how the public holds its government in such low regard. Yet, citizens feel incapable to forcing change due to the monopoly of power exercised by the two parties. I have previously written how we need to address this crisis with fundamental changes in our system. The Framers gave us the tools to force such changes, including reforming the Supreme Court. I have previously called for the Court to be expanded to 19 members. However, there are other proposals for reform, but none are being considered in a political system locked down by two parties.
Source: Pew
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/30/laissez-faire-with-strip-searches-liberalism Good discussion of the court’s reluctance to uphold the health care mandate because of the argument that the state should refrain from interfering in commerce and trade while at the same being willing to cede more ground to the government when it concerns strip searches and law enforcement in general.
Brooklin Bridge, The far right storm that you refer to is scary as they are heavily armed and have a racist bend.
Brooklin, My intention is to provide the working poor with health coverage including those with pre-existing contitions. I want them to be able to get chemo therapy if they need it. The ER does not provide it.
As I said, SMom, I think your intentions are good. I meant it when I said good luck.
Let’s hope you are right that the Democrats will save us, but if that is your strategy, I would seriously recommend watching that end of times preparedness program where every one is stocking up on this and that to weather the coming truly “far far far left and right” storm.
Brooklin, One thing we realize in theTexas sun is that there is a huge difference betwwen democrats and republicans in this state.
Brooklin, I didn’t call you a name and neither did I call Tony C one.
REPORT: What’s At Stake For Women If The Supreme Court Strikes Down Health Reform
By Igor Volsky on May 2, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Millions of American women would lose access to affordable health care coverage if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, a new report by Jessica Arons from the Center for American Progress argues. Since women are more likely to consume health care services, use prescription medication, suffer from chronic illness, and face discrimination in the individual health market, they “will suffer the most” from a negative Court decision.
The report claims that to invalidate the law in part or in whole would turn back the clock on the health care system and ensure that women are routinely discriminated against because of their gender and denied coverage for basic benefits in the individual health care market:
Those without a source of employer-sponsored coverage must purchase health insurance in the individual market—a market that routinely discriminates against women. Through a practice known as gender rating, women pay $1 billion more in premiums than men each year for the same set of benefits. And even though they pay more, they often receive fewer benefits. Individual market plans often exclude essential health services for women, such as maternity care, contraception, and Pap smears. And women are subject to coverage exclusions by health insurance providers in the individual market for gender-specific “pre-existing conditions” such as breast cancer, Cesarean sections, rape, and domestic violence.
Due to their higher utilization of health care, their higher premiums and cost-sharing burdens, and the lower levels of coverage for women-specific conditions, women have higher out-of-pocket costs than men and are also more likely to experience medical bankruptcy. Women of reproductive age spend 68 percent more on their health care expenses than men, and non-elderly adult women are more likely to be underinsured, meaning that they have out-of-pocket costs that total over 10 percent of their income.
Women have gained so much from Obamacare, but stand to lose it all should the Court — or Republicans in Congress — undo these advances:
Thanks Tony C! Now I know what I am: a progressive, CIVIL LIBERTY independent. (Ugg! what a mouthful ) But you can’t argue with a scientist :-). I yam what I yam.
SMom, if I could, I would give you a strong comfortable hat to wear against that harsh Texas sun. Too much of it will make your thoughts as shallow as a dried up tad-pole puddles. You will go around reading labels off everything and imagining the labels are the content. Phase two occurs when you start mixing up the labels cause you are angry and frightened.
Lesser of evils simply isn’t working. You know it and it bugs you. Take it out on me or Tony C or who-ever, all you want. In four more years we will be four years more to the right than where we are today regardless of who is president or of what mix of Republicans to Democrats the owners come up with in this go-around. Calling me all the names in the world will not change that fact one bit.
Hi all,
bhoyo,
I must admit that you certainly aspire high trying to “Buckley” the issue, in other words using rhetorical flourish to hide the lack of logical foundation to your bald assertions. Unfortunately, he had a better vocabulary and sentence structure. I’d say a C+ for trying and an F for argumentation. An A+ for vacuous pedantry.
MIke
Although I am slightly amused by your response, you never mentioned the basic ideas of organic law, and how it is actually the source of the derivative law. I am not willing to digress into a response of your grading system or the poor taxonomy implied in the ‘Buckley” idea. Although I do recognize the employment of condescension as an alternative to responding to substance, as a ‘dodge’.
Can you respond to the organic v derivative law relationship. It is my position that organic law is the very source of derivative law, I also know the ‘will of the people’ is to be sourced in the Constitution. In that we have written constitution, to make changes we have Article V at our disposal. FDR made the assertion to employ article v, or amend the constitution is futile, the Constitution is what the Justices say it is. From that point of course, we ended up with the ‘switch in time that saved nine.’ To achieve the FDR goals, many dramatch changes to Constitutional powers came to pass. One was the dictum that in way too many areas the Court would bow to Congress’s statutory efforts if in fact the derivative law passed some how could be spatchcocked into being a political decision.
Absent too is your response to the excrescent nature of regualtory governance I suggested is a threat to democracy.
Mike if this is not your field I understand, and it is ok.
Brooklin, My intention is to provide the working poor with health coverage including those with pre-existing contitions. I want them to be able to get chemo therapy if they need it. The ER does not provide it.
Brooklin, Good luck with President Romney and republicans on the hill.
Brooklin, So you hate democrats. Have you not been saying that for years?
@Swarthmore: You are correct, I am no longer a Democrat, because the Democrats have adopted all of the corporate agenda of Republicans. I am a progressive, CIVIL LIBERTY independent.
so how do we get to single payer
How do we do that with DEMOCRATS? They had the opportunity to do it and refused, under Obama, who we now know purposely undermined the negotiations by promising Pharma lobbyists in secret that re-importation would never happen and promising the Insurance lobbyists in secret that the Public Option would be killed and sending Rahm Emanuel to recruit Joe Liebermann to be the bad guy on everything the Insurance lobbyists did not want.
how does a progressive support someone that wants to end medicare.
Because I am not an idiot that thinks the President is a King and can invalidate decades of law by executive order, and even if he could I think civil liberties are more important than any social program. I am not willing to sell my rights for safety, and that is what is happening, both Republicans and Democrats are shredding the bill of rights.
Medicare is a law, if Ron Paul and Republicans do damage to the law we can restore the law in a subsequent administration. The Bill of Rights is the Constitution, if Romney or Obama or the Supreme Court continue making the Constitution irrelevant to their actions in office, the Constitution will never be restored and this country will be lost to fascism.
At this point it is triage, Obama has proven to be an even worse liar than Bush, and they are destroying your civil liberties. So yes, I will risk damage to social programs that can be repaired to preserve the lifeblood of freedom that is civil liberties, especially since I think Ron Paul would have very little power to influence the social programs and much greater power to preserve civil liberties.
But apparently you are incapable of comprehending the idea of strategic trade offs, and as happy as a child if your politicians are telling you what you want to hear even if they are doing the opposite of that in office or only giving lip service to it.
Perhaps I am a little more reality based and less easily propagandized.
For the sake of clarity, SMom, I repeat what I said in the earlier thread; Democrats are not your friends no matter how scary Republicans make themselves for your benefit. That is a fact you ignore at your own peril and it includes but is not limited to issues of woman’s rights.
I completely agree with Tony C, with every one of his points, and that does not make me a liberatarian, nor does it make me a Republican operative as you — SMom — have suggested in another thread simply because I disagreed with you that the Democrats in congress are not your friends when it comes to issues of woman’s rights over their own bodies.
The only point Tony C made that I would take issue with is that he is a “far left” progressive. To me, there is nothing “far” about any of his points or positions. What we now call “far left” used to simply be “liberal”, period, as little as 15 years ago.
I still imagine your intentions are good, SMom, but you have some nasty habits . Good luck.
The GOP’s New Sneak Attack on Abortion
Buried in a Republican bill to give states more say over health care funds is a provision that could block them from spending their own money on abortions.
—By Nick Baumann Mother Jones
| Thu May. 3, 2012 3:00 AM PDT
15
A group of congressional Republicans are pushing a bill to put key health care decisions in the hands of the states, rather than the federal government. But language buried in the legislation would do the opposite on one key issue: abortion.
Rep. Todd Rokita’s (R-Ind.) State Health Flexibility Act, also known as HR 4160, contains a provision that would force 17 states, including California, Massachusetts, and New York, to either discontinue programs that help low-income women pay for abortions, or spend a lot more money to purchase new insurance plans for those women. Thirty House Republicans have signed onto Rokita’s proposal since it was introduced in March*, and the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservatives that includes over 70 percent of the GOP caucus, made HR 4160 part of its official budget plan.
If passed, the bill “would block the only avenue left to states that wish to make safe and legal abortions accessible to low income women,” says Sara Rosenbaum, a health law expert at George Washington University…..
Tony C, I don’t have any idea what party you belong to. I doubt that you are a democrat. My point is that Ron Paul is opposed to medicare so how do we get to single payer with a President Paul and how does a progressive support someone that wants to end medicare.
No argument here……. Brooklin said that there were people other than libertarians that are against the mandate. You made my point.
@Swarthmore: Shall we get into it again? Will you once again start lying about my positions by leaving out what I have told you repeatedly?
I am a Ron Paul supporter because Ron Paul is a libertarian, and although I disagree with ALL of his free market ideology, Ron Paul is the ONLY candidate that is advocating an end of war and a return to the rule of law. Ron Paul is the only candidate against the Patriot Act, the only candidate for our constitutional civil rights, the only candidate opposed to search without warrant, detention without charges, and a re-invention of the criminal justice system so that “The President Always Wins,” the only candidate opposed to the assassination by executive order of United States Citizens without any charges, and the only candidate opposed to the now criminal Federal Reserve. He is the only candidate opposed to the war on drugs.
I could go on, but I support Ron Paul because I support the Constitution and civil rights and I believe correcting the erosion of our civil rights is more important than any other policy question. And I have told you this before, and every time you say I support Ron Paul because he is a Republican, or imply that I support everything Ron Paul believes you are lying.
I am a far left progressive, but there are no far left progressive politicians to vote for; Obama is more of Bush and Romney would be no different. The only person running that has made explicit and plausible promises to work to reverse any of the encroachments on our civil liberties and bill of rights that I care about.
I am pro-choice, Ron Paul is not. Ron Paul believes in free markets, I think that is childishly naive. Ron Paul believes in low taxes, I think that is just stupid. Ron Paul wants to dismantle safety net programs like social security and Medicare and welfare and unemployment, I think that is horrific. But in the end so will the likes of Ryan, Romney, Gingrich and Obama, they have all put cuts to these programs on the table before. So what is the difference?
The only difference is Ron Paul has consistently, by his actions, defended your right to free speech, to a trial, to privacy, to your right to refuse a search without a valid warrant, to your right to speak, email, and write letters in privacy without being recorded by the government, to your right to drug yourself if you so choose, and even to your right to choose whether you will pay for health insurance or not.
Stop trying to mislead people about my position, every time you try to imply I am a Republican or conservative you are lying and you know it.
Tony C, You identified yourself as a Ron Paul supporter. I would wager that nearly 100 percent of Ron Paul supporters are against the mandate. Ron Paul is not far left. He is a republican.
@Swarthmore mom “He is a republican”
More like a Libertarian…which is different from what the Republican Party has become…which is why they try to dis-own/ignore him….
@Brooklin: Swarthmore said, Most people that are against the mandate are conservatives, Brooklyn. The progressives that are against it are few and far between.
Do not believe that. I am a far left progressive, a research scientist that knows many to-the-left progressives on the faculty of a large university. There are many progressives that can think for themselves and do not rely on propaganda from either party to make their decisions, and we think the individual mandate is a craven theft by corporate America, that will cost us thousands of dollars per citizen for token benefits we could have had for tens of dollars per citizen.
The individual mandate is as you described it. There is a light year of difference between a government taxing us to provide a common benefit at cost, and a government that forces us to buy a product from a for-profit organization owned and operated by private citizens that stand to make tens of billions of dollars and answering to nobody. It is the equivalent of converting the law into enforcers for the mob.