There was an unscripted moment for President Barack Obama yesterday that might make Justice Department lawyers defending the recent unilateral changes to immigration laws a bit uneasy. The President was faced with an understandably annoying problem of hecklers who interrupted his speech demanding an end to deportations of anyone. The President responded with a clearly justified admonishment that they should let him speak, but he added in obvious frustration “What you’re not paying attention to is the fact that I just took an action to change the law.” That is what the Administration lawyers have striven to deny. They are insisting that this was not a change in law (which is a legislative act) but the exercise of discretion allowed under the law.
I have to say that I have always admired how the President handled such hecklers. He stay calm and respectful despite dealing with some pretty rude characters in the past.
President Obama admonished the protesters initially by saying “Don’t just start yelling, young ladies . . . I let you holler . . . You’ve got to listen to me too.” He then said “What you’re not paying attention to is the fact that I just took an action to change the law.”
His other statement was more in line with the legal position of the Administration: “Although I disagree with some of your characterizations, it does not make much sense to yell at me right now, when we are making changes.”
Here is the encounter:
The statement comes after another statement earlier where the President seemed to draw an uncertain line over when he is entitled to act unilaterally and when he is not. The statement came in an excellent interview by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos where President Obama made some strong points. However, Stephanopoulos asked Obama: “How do you respond to the argument, a future president comes in, wants lower taxes. Doesn’t happen. Congress won’t do it — he says I’m not going to prosecute those who don’t pay capital gains tax.” When the President did not address that question, Stephanopoulos pressed again “So you don’t think it’d be legitimate for a future president to make that argument?” The President responded “With respect to taxes? Absolutely not.” Despite the President’s skills in argument, the separation-of-powers question is how that line is drawn from taxes to health care to online gambling to immigration etc.
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Sorry. Just read the past few comments. This is getting very personal fast.
Never mind why you copied my comment. Clearly Inga thought “terminal relative” must mean my sister. Heck of a jump. Moving on to another website.
CORRECTION: I worked damn hard as a nurse for 35 YEARS.
Inga:
Why did you just copy and paste my entire comment? What was your question?
I didn’t hear anyone here called a malingerer. We were talking about Medicare/Medicaid running out of money, and people defrauding the system draining money. Disability fraud is a real problem, and a burden on the system.
I would like to be able to bring up problems with our healthcare system without you thinking it’s about you. MLK hospital is in CA, and you basically had to be African American to work there, so I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with you.
trooperyork >> Unless “Overtweezing is a Danger” is the desired takeaway from your photo, I think it might help your case if you were to link a photo to the article rather than the original photo.
I never killed any fat men with man boobs.
Zedalis, your’re getting a quickie lesson in the vile nature of certain commenters and their buddies.
Oh, maybe Spinelli was just calling ME a malingerer. Because Spinelli must’ve seen my medical records, he ‘knows’ things. Don’tcha know?
on 1, November 26, 2014 at 4:09 pmKaren S
Squeeky:
According to the trustees, Medicare will run out of money by 2030, if I remember correctly. It needs to be reformed before we can even consider adding more people. Already, the only way it’s affordable is by using private gap insurance. Otherwise, a long hospital stay would absolutely ruin someone.
And Medicaid has already suffered deep cuts. That was AFTER my terminal relative couldn’t get them to pay for a liquid version of her medicine. They only covered pills. She had a feeding tube. Her doctors fought and fought, but it’s an administrator who makes the call. They wouldn’t pay for her large bandages. On the plus side, she was not restricted to her home state for care, because Medicaid was national. They wouldn’t pay for any home care to check on her while her mom was at work, even though she had no balance. So some good and some bad. There have been more cuts since then, so I don’t know how it compares now.
But you make a very good point, that it’s not really health insurance that’s important. It’s the availability and affordability of health CARE. Big difference. Insurance is just one quiver in the arrow to hit that target.
Trooper:
Nooooooooo. Not the nurse serial killer!!! She’s creepy! You’re going to give me nightmares.
Who called Lee a malingerer???
zedalis, There are indeed disabled people. However, I have seen so many people lie. Private insurance hire people like myself to find frauds. They have a bottom line to protect, and shareholders to answer to. The govt. has a money tree and they care not about fraud. Dems love more people getting disability because then they have their vote. We have a woman here, leejcarroll. She is an honest and much deserved recipient of benefits. She and I have discussed privately the people who scam the system. Leej worked in an ER and saw it for herself.
Being a libertarian, I despise corporate welfare. I have often railed against it here and elsewhere. If you make intellectually honest comments like you just did, I will respond. It’s up to you.
Inga – thanks for the background. In the short time I’ve been participating here, I have not quite gotten the hang of all the oblique insults that skirt the civility rules.
http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2014/10/15/nurse-nasty-suspected-of-killing-38-people-in-italy/jcr:content/image.img.2000.jpg/1413436096447.cached.jpg
It would help the discussion by sticking to the arguments brought forth in this article. The scope of this matter is nationwide and not something of petty complaints between individuals here. The general readership is not interested in that type of contention. The commenters would serve themselves better by providing readers something informative rather than setting themselves up to be viewed as irrelevant and of small ideas by resorting to insults amongst each other, meritless of contribution to the topics of the article. It is an opportunity to be read on a national scale, and not squandered on pettiness.
Nick:
True. Disability fraud is rampant. Those bad apples steal from those who truly deserve it, like Lee.
I recall when the MLK Hospital in CA was having trouble, there was this epidemic of nurses falling out of chairs. The most dangerous object in the entire hospital was a chair. Nurses would fall out of it and go on disability for months. It takes money from those who really deserve it. My sister-in-law’s body has taken a beating from years of nursing. I’m pretty sure she would work with a severed limb.
The public is happy to support those who really need disability. It’s the fraud that’s the problem.
Zedalis, zspinelli is attempting t insult me and LeeJCaroll another commente who is on SSDI. Worked damn hard as a nurse for 3 years which caused my DJD and spinal stenosis. He likes to disparage those with real disabilities, while he smokes marijauna.
Inga – I would think that if you had a M Sn. you would worked for longer than 3 years as a nurse.
Inga:
My sister was never on Medicaid.
Some people fake their pain level to get medical marijauna.
Nick, I thought that FL Gov. Rick Scott caused the Medicare “bankruptcy”.
In all seriousness, all sane people are going to agree with you that any and all government benefits will eventually be abused (farm subsidies, tax breaks for corporations that shift labor overseas, all those little Congressional gifts that allow people like Romney to pay a lesser tax rate than his gardener, etc.). I’d agree to common sense reforms to weed out the scammers and the schemers from any of these benefit programs.
I might urge caution when painting the disabled with such a broad brush, however. I’m sure we have all known genuinely disabled individuals that have been sustained through what must be harrowing obstacles by the generous help of their countrymen who have decided as a society that helping is not an onerous burden.