In 2010, I (and others) criticized the Democratic leadership (including then Majority Leader Harry Reid and many of the continuing Democratic senators) for their use of the “nuclear option” in curtailing the power of the filibuster. I was equally critical of Republican leaders who previously suggested such a course of action. The Democrats acted with little concern that they might ever be in the minority and need this critical power. They muscled through the Affordable Care Act on a marginal vote that cost various members their seats and passed a highly flawed bill that was plagued by problems of bad drafting and poor planning. Moreover, they secured relatively few confirmations to federal office. The result was the final demise of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees when the Republicans took power. The result for the Democrats is Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed by a 50 to 48 vote.
Kavanaugh was confirmed by the smallest margin since 1881. In 1881, Justice Stanley Matthews was confirmed in a vote of 24-23. Matthews served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the 23rd Ohio in the Civil War under the command of Rutherford Hayes and with fellow officer William McKinley. He also was a student with Hayes at Kenyon College.
In 1881, Hayes nominated Matthews for the Supreme Court but his close association was viewed as cronyism. Like Merrick Garland, the Senate never acted on the nomination. However, Matthews was then nominated again by James Garfield — leading to his narrow margin of confirmation.
Here is Harry Reid and the Democrats throwing caution and self-preservation to the winds in a move that would ultimately put Kavanaugh on the Court — and may open up a new conservative era of the Court.
Before the great ice age the earth must have been warmer. Before the great ice age weren’t there people on the earth. This seems easy to understand. So the earth has gone through climate changes in the past. It will probably go through climate changes in the future. I don’t see any argument on this subject.
Several years ago I sent an email to John Kerry. His office very nicely replied that he had elected not to take part in the ACA. I guess I’m hearing a lot of inaccurate info on this bill. I do know I’ve talked to a lot of self employed people whose premiums have gone through the roof. Obama care was built on lies and dishonesty. I think that the Democrats would be happy with Jonathan Gruber as a Supreme Court justice.
Ph you might be right. I have also heard hat congressional staffers are entitled to up to a $12,00.00 stipend to help them offset the cost of the affordable care act. I think you’re right.
The Democrats are so screwed. 😜🖕🏾😂
Trump needs to reassert Presidential authority on the SCOTUS judges. We going through these absurd, way too long, Senate clown shows and tearing the country apart, and at the end, NO ONE CHANGES THEIR VOTE. The Dems aren’t voting based on what learn in the nomination process. They were 48-1 against Kavanaugh on August 1st and that didn’t change.
So quit wasting everyone’s time with these bogus 1,000 page questionnaires, and 2 days of hearings where the Senators do nothing but Grandstand. Trump should just ignore the Democrats next time (assuming R’s retain control) and ask the Swing vote R’s what they need. And convince them. And then they should vote.
There is NO Support for the filibuster when Judicial nominees are concerned.
Go look at the 20th century nomination votes. Most of the Justices prior to Bork were either approved by a voice vote or incredibly large margins. Even the contentious nominations like Brandeis (46-22) – Hughes (52-26) and Rehnquist (62-26) won by large margins and were never filibustered (even when cloture required 65 votes).
Stevens, Kennedy, O Connor, Scalia, Ginsberg and Breyer all got 90 plus votes. Thomas was approved by 4 votes and never filibustered. Bork got a straight up and down vote, and there no talk of filibuster.
We elect the POTUS to determine who sits on the SCOTUS. We do not hand it to over to a small minority of Senators using a filibuster to get their way & block nominations. In fact, the whole purpose of the filibuster is to force the Majority to wait and reconsider on LEGISLATION.
So, I don’t care WHO got rid of it. Who ever did, Reid or McConnell, deserves America’s thanks.
REGARDING ATTACKS ON OBAMACARE
Republicans can’t grasp that medical technology surged in the late 20th Century; extending lives by many years while greatly inflating the costs of healthcare.
These trends were already recognized by Physicians and Social Scientists during the era of Bush Sr: ‘Who was going to pay for medical advances?’ I read a screenplay on said topic in the early 1990’s (written by surgeon moonlighting as a novelist).
Therefore when Bill Clinton first proposed Universal Health Care in 1993, he was simply looking ahead. Anticipating the collapse of healthcare models that had been in place since World War II. People were living longer and surviving many formally fatal maladies.
Clinton was not successful in his push for Universal. But that didn’t stop the healthcare system from collapsing as the new century dawned. Hospitals were getting burned by too many patients lacking comprehensive coverage.
In the run-up to The Great Recession, lack of health insurance was the leading cause of bankruptcy and credit card debt. One could argue that lack of health insurance was actually a component of The Great Recession; ‘too many people in debt’!
Obamacare was a good faith attempt to rebalance the healthcare system. A new business model to replace the old. Had Republicans cooperated, with an earnest effort to provide healthcare for all Americans, Obamacare might be known as only ‘ACA’, a bipartisan effort supported by hospitals and insurers.
Obamacare was the last free market stop on the road Socialized Medicine.
PH,..
Medical technology surged in the 20th Century, not just the late 20th Century.
You mentioned that “the late 20th Century” surge in medical technology extended “lives by many years while greatly inflately the cost of health care.”
Life expectancy for Americans increased by about 20 years for Americans between 1900 and 1960.
Let’s say that those 60 years are about three generations.
This was during a period where costs for medical care rose roughly in line with the overall cost of live.
We have probably seen an increased life expectancy of about 10 years Americans as costs for medical care increased at about 3× the general rate of inflation over the past c.three generations.
Interestingly enough, life expentancies DROPPED for two consectutive years in 2015 and 2016; that had not happened in about in about 55 years, and it happened to follow the full enactment of ObamaCare.
An MD who practised in 1960 may not recognize many features of medical technology today, but an MD of 1900 certainly would have been astounded at the advances obtained by 1960.
I think it’s a mistake to overly attribute the explosion in health care costs to the steady advances in medical technology and life expectancies; much of those improvements were seen in earlier generations before costs for medical care skyrocketed.
Tom I think life expectancy from birth increased by about 7 or so years between 1950 to 2000.
Tom, these things are very hard to calculate. It used to be a heart attack would land a person in a hospital for several weeks. That several weeks was very expensive. New technologies have led to stents being placed in the body and the patient leaving within a day or so saving money on hospitalization. Costs could radically be reduced without affecting quality if more of a marketplace existed.
Tom, let’s go with what you’re saying here; ‘that by 1960 medical technology had advanced considerably since the century began’. That would would explain the need for Medicare pushed by Lyndon Johnson.
Pacemakers came along in the early 1970’s and they alone extended tens of thousands of lives. Dick Cheney is a famous example of someone whose life was extended by pacemakers.
Organ transplants became increasingly sophisticated in the late 20th Century. They, however, came with very steep price tags. Just one transplant can negate the insurance premiums of thousands of payees.
PH,..
– The fact remains that those advances in medical technology and longevity ( from 1900 to 1960) were not accompanied by runaway costs for medical services.
The explosion in health care costs came in the latter part of the 20th century, AFTER the passage of MediCare and MediCaid.
This is the major reason for the argument that enactment of these programs actually drove health care costs higher, rather than responding to health care costs that actually had been increasing in line with the general rate of inflation.
There was always the expectation that the aggregate costs of health care spending would increase due to the costs of rolling in tens of millions of beneficiaries into these programs.
And it’s true that advances like those of organ transplants are going to be extraordinarily expensive.
But that does not explain why the most common procedures and services have increased about 3000% over the past few generations while the overall cost of living is up about 600%.
A frequent commentator here mentioned what the total bill was for the birth of their child in the 1970s.
And wondered what the typical cost would be today for an uncomplicated birth.
I think he could probably multiply the cost by about a factor of 25, but there would be some key differences.
The average stay for hospitalization has decreased from about 7.5 days to about 4.8 days over the past c. 30 years.
So a mother giving birth, or a patient undergoing common procedures like gall bladder operations or hernia repairs, is likely to be discharged “on schedule”.
If it was typical for a patient to have a 3 or 4 day recovery period following a routine surgery, that patient is far more likely to be discharged today in 2 days, if that’s what the reimbursement standards call for.
In some cases, recovery times are shortened because of innovative medical advances.
In other cases, the patient is likely to get discharged “on schedule” whether or not that recovery time has been shortened.
Without trying to determine whether patients “stayed too long” prior to the late 1980s, or whether some are getting discharged too soon today, the shortened hospital stays have not prevented these costs of these same, routine procedures from skyrocketing.
Some who post here have reviewed these enormous increase in costs for these common, routine medical procedures over the past several decades.
Obviously, an organ transplant that was uncommon or unavailable decades ago is going to be very expensive.
But that still does not explain the acrossed-the-board hyperinflation for the most common procedures.
Tom, all those examples you cite suggest the need for national guidelines on what procedures should cost. Obamacare was a step in that direction. Whereas a free-market approach to medicine encourages price-gouging. Pharmaceuticals have no mind to surrender super-profitable drugs. They will do everything they can to maintain that profit stream. And that means buying up competing, generic drug makers.
the need for national guidelines on what procedures should cost.
I think there are some idled professionals who used to work for Gosplan we might hire. Worked real well.
Spastic, if you don’t like crony capitalism, you must hate the Trump administration. Especially Betsy DeVos.
Let’s not pretend that Trump’s regulators are stooges for industry. Trump chases out career civil servants.
Some career civil servants need to be fired. They do illegal things at work while being paid and then have the audacity to say on video ‘I can’t be fired’.
“Obamacare was a step in that direction.’
Is that why it was enterring a death spiral?
Is that why those without subsidies were impoverished from the exceptionally high costs that were going higher?
Is that why many of the so called new programs were actually studied or done before and failed?
Is it a step in the right direction to stifle innovation?
Is sit a step in the right direction to stifle growth?
You don’t know how Obamacare worked economically or medically yet you talk so loudly.
You regurgitate information rightly and wrongly without much understanding of what everything means.
“Michael Avenatti
Verified account
@MichaelAvenatti
Below please find a statement from my client Julie Swetnick regarding the Kavanaugh nomination. I urge you to read it.”
https://twitter.com/MichaelAvenatti/status/1048938173932482561/photo/1
This comes from a person who is too afraid to use a consistent alias because he has run away from every previous alias. The posted document should have some evdence, but it has zero and is worth as much as the poster’s alias which is also non existent.
So says some random guy who calls himself “Allan.”
But I stick with an alias so I have to be consistent. You make a fool of yourself no matter Witch alias you use. You are like a little kid that can’t take any heat and has constantly run away so that we meet you over and over again only recognizeable by the fooishness you purvey.
Take it up with Jonathan Turley and/or start your own blog, buddy. You seem to have plenty of time on your hands to engage in spewing nonsense. Some call it “Allanonsense.”
As for consistency?
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why should I take it up with anyone? You are a fool with or without an alias. Doesn’t bother me. I can say what I want either way, but everyone knows you are too scared to even carrry an alias.
It’s Diane.
“It’s Diane.” — from a big wad of TP
This from another idiot who calls himself “Tabarrok to the Pillory” and fancies himself clever.
Not sure you are correct. This I think is the generic anonymous. Remember Hollywood?
“Scared”? My god you really are an idiot.
That was to the random idiot who calls himself Allan.
So far zero worthwhile from this utterly ignorant individual.
You have repeated yourself many times demonstrating a lack of thought and vocabulary. You are a fool.
Yes, scared. That is why you use a generic alias. You can deny it all you want but you want your previous remarks kept secret. That is fine because everyone recognizes you as a fool.
Get yourself a real life, Allan, old boy. It isn’t to be found on a blog.
Thanks for the suggestion generic anonymous whose own alias scares him. My life is great. Thanks for thinking about me.
Written/published early yesterday:
“As the court moves to the right to accommodate Trump’s appointments, Kavanaugh will inevitably become the focus of distrust and mobilization. His very presence will undermine the court’s claim to legitimacy; it will damage the nation’s commitment to the rule of law. It will be an American tragedy.” –Rpbert Post
Brett Kavanaugh Cannot Have It Both Ways
As the former dean of Yale Law School, I’m shocked by the judge’s partisan turn.
By ROBERT POST October 06, 2018
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/06/kavanaugh-confirmation-temperament-yale-dean-221086
“I was in the end prompted to write this essay because on Thursday Kavanaugh published a remarkable editorial in the Wall Street Journal in which he apologized for his rash words and attempted to reclaim for himself the “independence and impartiality” so necessary for judges. But judicial temperament is not like a mask that can be put on or taken off at will. Judicial temperament is more than skin-deep. It is part of the DNA of person, as is well illustrated by Merrick Garland, who never once descended to the partisan rancor of Kavanaugh, despite the Senate’s refusal even to dignify his nomination with a hearing.
“Judge Kavanaugh cannot have it both ways. He cannot gain confirmation by unleashing partisan fury while simultaneously claiming that he possesses a judicial and impartial temperament. If Kavanaugh really cared about the integrity and independence of the Supreme Court, he would even now withdraw from consideration.
“Kavanaugh will thus join the court as the black-robed embodiment of raw partisan power inconsistent with any ideal of an impartial judiciary. As the court moves to the right to accommodate Trump’s appointments, Kavanaugh will inevitably become the focus of distrust and mobilization. His very presence will undermine the court’s claim to legitimacy; it will damage the nation’s commitment to the rule of law. It will be an American tragedy.”
OK, the former dean is a humbug willing to put words on a page that would have embarrassed an intellectually serious person 40 years ago.
A predictable response from TP. And laughable, too.
Anonymous – at no point did anyone claim that Garland had gropped them in high school, or whipped out their penis in college or participated in gang rapes in colleges. Had Garland been accused of this things we might have seen a different response from him.
Now, if Trump gets TWO more selections to the court, we will get Attila the Hun and Ghenghis Khan. And Yale and Harvard will NEVER have clerks on the SC again.
The Democrats positioned themselves, through their dishonorable actions, into a position that the end result was not merely that Judge Kavanagh was confirmed, but one where they were an underhanded bully that was rightfully defeated.
The average person will look at their actions with contempt, that the Democrats used despicable means to railroad a nominee who could rightfully claim to be the underdog or the victim of a witch hunt.
You won’t see this very much in the news which will continue to press the issue with all the legs they can wreathe from it from viewership: Nor from the hardcore democrat who wanted Kavanagh defeated by any means. But most non-polarized individuals will not accept what the Democrats did and it will be just another piece of evidence they will use when deciding candidates.
Darren, I agree that unsubstantiated allegations from one’s high school era should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. But it appears that Kavanough really ‘was’ a rowdy drunk. Which raises obvious questions of ‘when’ and ‘if’ Kavanough’s drinking ever tapered off. Those questions remain unanswered.
Furthermore, Kavanough’s combative, emotional performance at that second hearing betrayed an attitude of entitlement. An attitude of naked partisanship was also on display. Especially Kavanough’s unsubstantiated claim that he was the victim of a Clinton conspiracy. No nominee to the court has ever uttered conspiracy theories before a Senate hearing. That was totally unbecoming of a Federal Judge!
Peter Shill fancies people have an unjustified sense of ‘entitlement’ if they expect to be free of campaigns of slander and libel courtesy the Democratic Party.
Which raises obvious questions of ‘when’ and ‘if’ Kavanough’s drinking ever tapered off.
No it doesn’t, Peter. He finished all of his degrees on time, was licensed without a hitch, has had demanding jobs for 28 years, hasn’t any coarse pratfalls in his past (even scrapes of the sort Jeb Bush’s sons had), is married to his first and only wife, has a full social and avocational life, and looks 10 years younger than he actually is.
Looks 10 years younger..?? I don’t see that, Tab. To be honest Kavanough has one those doughy, pasty faces common to drinkers.
Furthermore I happen to know a very bright alcoholic who’s had a very successful career. A man who’s been drinking heavily since high school and is still working near retirement age. So don’t assume that drinking hinders every career. It ‘does’ more often than not, but there are bright exceptions.
Peter, It’s really puerile the way you hold to these pretenses.
Peter Shill is a Democrat. That is why he believes Christy Ford, and Sweatlick and the other one. It confirms his bias against Republicans. If Brett was a Democrat, he would not believe any of them. His mind would work just fine, and he would see right thru the lying whores.
Either that, or he’s just a plain old lying shill.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
DSS, Peter isn’t very smart. The rat beats him every time.
If entitlement was the sole disqualifier for political office most politicians would be ran out of DC on a rail.
Peter Shill wrote: “Which raises obvious questions of ‘when’ and ‘if’ Kavanough’s drinking ever tapered off. Those questions remain unanswered.”
Meh. You conduct yourself like a loudmouth drunk on these forums.
You just have peepee envy the Justice Kavanaugh has an envious professional and academic past and now an oh so bright future.
We can understand why you act like such a drunk but please at least buy us a round before you move to another online forum to make your stay amongst us at least somewhat enjoyable
Drinks on Petey! 😉
Jacque, ‘pee-pee envy’..?? My god..!! Any blithering idiot can think of references like that! It really cheapens Turley’s blog when losers like you pass off crap like that.
“Furthermore, Kavanough’s combative, emotional…”
Lawdy lawdy lawdy. Talk about ironic name calling! Dude, you need to clean up your emotional problems.
So if Sotomayor has some health issues and RBG may not wake up one of these days, wow, Trump might have a real bonanza in choosing new Supreme Court Justices. That would be great.
When Obama care was designed the insurance companies were there sitting at the table. It’s must be nice to compel politicians to pass a law that forces the population to purchase the product that you sell or pay a fine. Remember the IRS was involved in this fiasco. It was such a good plan that the house and senate made themselves exempt from it. Come to think of it the house and senate are not on Medicare or social security. Now there’s an indorsement.
You do realize that all the facts contained in your last two sentences are false. Congress is subject to the provisions of the ACA and members must buy coverage through an exchange. Members also pay into Medicare and social security. There is a slight difference in that they can continue to purchase on the exchange after they are on Medicare.
Bob, the hospitals were also totally onboard with Obamacare. Because ‘before’ Obamacare, hospitals were routinely stiffed by the uninsured. That was a major, major problem that Republicans never acknowledged.
PH, it was working fine for me. Why does my situation have to be flipped upside down?
Now that Kavanaugh’s ordeal is over, can we go back to the steady diet of Manafort mug shots?
Here is a really good video on how the Democrats have become totally mixed up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP4I1lxEvrE
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Good find, Squeeky!
Obamacare needs to be put in a lead-lined box, weighted down, and then put into a larger box, and then dumped into the Mariana Trench.
Die Obamacare, die!
It took almost inconceivable callousness to take away affordable health care individual policies from the middle class, and replace it with completely unaffordable policies that the good doctors won’t even take. They have to pay out of pocket to see anyone good, and they’ll get fined if they don’t buy a policy. It did not provide quality health care to the poor, either. As I mentioned, the good doctors, and many cancer treatment centers, won’t accept it. It’s just a shiny new insurance card, a false promise of health care. Instead of elevating the poor off of county health clinics, it dumped the unsubsidized, individual policy holding middle class down in there with them. Isn’t that the Socialist paradigm, though? Capitalism lifts all boats while Socialism drags them all under.
Note to government – you don’t have a good product if you have to fine people to force them to buy it.
Karen, describe for us the Republican alternative to Obamacare that the Republicans have been working on for 9 years at this point.
Great answer.
Funny you should mention that. Nobel Prize winning physicist Leon Leaderman has to sell his Nobel prize to pay his medical bills before he died in poverty because there is no national health insurance in our country. That is s disgrace.
Radio: More likely to have died poor because of poor financial planning. When did those born in 1922 start thinking they would live till 96? HE would have been at social security standard retirement age in 1987. Look at your wealth today and divide that up over 31 years. For most that are still working that means poverty 31 years later especially if a big expense occurs.
DO YOU REALIZE FOR 31 YEARS HE HAD NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE KNOWN AS MEDICARE?
That makes Radio’s comments a disgrace. Start thinking.
Allan, seniors routinely died in their late 60’s to early 70’s until the Johnson era. And medical technologies were primitive (which limited their costs). Oldsters with bad hearts were simply told to “take it easy”. In fact, ‘you’ would be long dead by now if this were the 1950’s, the decade that you’re stuck in.
No clue what you fancy you’re talking about.
No clue, Tab? I scarcely doubt you have.
Republicans can’t grasp that medical technology surged in the late 20th Century; extending lives by many years while greatly inflating the costs of healthcare.
These trends were already recognized by Physicians and Social Scientists during the era of Bush Sr: ‘Who was going to pay for medical advances?’ I read a screenplay on said topic in the early 1990’s (written by surgeon moonlighting as a novelist).
Therefore when Bill Clinton first proposed Universal Health Care in 1993, he was simply looking ahead. Anticipating the collapse of healthcare models that had been in place since World War II. People were living longer and surviving many formally fatal maladies.
Clinton was not successful in his push for Universal. But that didn’t stop the healthcare system from collapsing as the new century dawned. Hospitals were getting burned by too many patients lacking comprehensive coverage.
In the run-up to The Great Recession, lack of health insurance was the leading cause of bankruptcy and credit card debt. One could argue that lack of health insurance was actually a component of The Great Recession; ‘too many people in debt’!
Obamacare was a good faith attempt to rebalance the healthcare system. A new business model to replace the old. Had Republicans cooperated, with an earnest effort to provide healthcare for all Americans, Obamacare might be known as only ‘ACA’, a bipartisan effort supported by hospitals and insurers.
Obamacare was the last free market stop on the road Socialized Medicine.
As a rule, technological advances of seminal value see declining cost with each subsequent layer of innovation. (That aside from your assumption, not really examined, about the degree to which improvements in life expectancy can be attributed to medical technology),
The ratio of gross output in health care and social assistance to total gross output was 0.052 in 1997 and 0.072 in 2017. Some of that is due to demographic shifts. There is also deadweight loss derived from the (chuckles) ‘price system’.
Obamacare was the last free market stop on the road Socialized Medicine.
Peter, pro-tip: someone who describes contemporary medical finance as ‘free market’ (given the large share accounted for by public expenditure and the largely fictional price system therein) is marking himself as someone who couldn’t find his d*ck with both hands.
BTW, the ratio of gross output in finance and insurance to that total gross output in finance and insurance exceeds that in health care and social assistance. Awaiting your learned treatise on socialized banking.
“someone who couldn’t find his d*ck with both hands.”
Tab, it’s Libertarian fantasy to think that a purely free-market system could serve the general public with regards to healthcare. Therefore nerdy Libertarians come up with bogus equations contrived to look like advanced algebra. But one can expect that from people who think this country could operate on a Calvin Coolidge budget.
Thanks for providing a response to a bevy of assertions I never made. It’s been an education.
“lack of health insurance was the leading cause of bankruptcy”
Peter, that is not really true. You must have read hyped and uneducated reports of Himmestein’s article. According to Himmelstein a man who had tens of millions of dollars and a $1,000 medical bill that happened to go bankrupt was considered to have gone bankrupt at least in part due to medical costs. That is where the 50% number came from if you remember correctly. By the way fully insured people on Medicare went Bankrupt as well due to medical costs according to Himmelstein. You really ought to learn to read the actual studies before makeing your ignorant remarks.
Bankruptcy from medical related costs (not nursing home type care) was in low single digits at that time. One didn’t have to do telephone survey’s and the like. Bankruptcies are recorded so one can easily get an actual picture of what the major causes are. A bigger cause likely is illness with loss of job.
Peter is repeating a discredited meme from about a decade back. The actual finding was that x% of people who declare bankruptcy have unpaid medical bills. IIRC, the median value of medical debts in their sample was $18,000. Compare that to mortgages, student loan debt, credit card debt, &c.
Peter doesn’t have a fraction of the knowledge he thinks he has.
Yes, your number isn’t clearly defined but seems to make sense. I’ll take this opportunity to correct the Himmelstein article I talked about. I think the article may have said 60% of bankruptcies caused by health problems. A nutso article from Harvard.
Your point is?
By the way the drug digitalis (used for heart disease) dates back to ancient times. This is true of trephination as well. In other words in ancient time Natacha Richardson’s ( Liam Neeson’s wife) life could perhaps have been saved in ancient times.
The important issue to be garnered from Radio and my discussion is that Radio’s claim of no national health insurance caused Leaderman to die in poverty wasn’t true since Leaderman was on Medicare for 31 years and Medicare on average was the equivalent (and probably superior to ) any national health insurance we will offer in the future should such a bill pass.
“seniors routinely died ”
By the way, people routinely die all the time.
I couldn’t really figure out what nonsensical point you were trying to provide so I decided to provide a bit of history to make this discussion more interesting and worthwhile.
Faculty members have portable pensions via TIAA-CREF, not to mention Social Security and Medicare. The man was still employed as of 2005. If he was ‘in poverty’ at the time of his death, that would be absolutely bizarre. I think it’s possible he had to liquidate assets to pay for nursing home care. (The reference I’ve found to this urban legend was at Vox, which refers to nursing home charges). Financing long-term care is an issue distinct from that of financing medical care, and a knotty problem in and of itself. The regulations on asset liquidation vary from state to state. Some assets are unattachable and some forms of asset dumping leave family members vulnerable to lawsuits from the state (whereas others do not). Selling his medal was sensible if the alternative was selling income producing assets of use to supporting his wife.
DSS, the essential issue was a nonsensical call for national health insurance by Radio: “he died in poverty because there is no national health insurance in our country.”
The man was on Medicare at age 65 (31 years). That is national health insurance for those over 65. It shows how little understanding people have about the issue of healthcare and how all they can deal with are slogans. Reality seems to escape Radio and from the rest on the left.
The People are completely and totally free.
Government is severely limited and maximally restricted.
Obamacare is individual welfare and does not serve ALL as “…general welfare…”
Doctors and insurers are free people engaged in free enterprise as private property which government has no constitutional authority over with the exception of Eminent Domain including compensation.
When America ensconces Supreme Court Justices which can read the Constitution, Obamacare will be denied, voided, rescinded and abrogated immediately.
Please read the Constitution.
– Congress has no power to impose Obamacare because Congress has no power to tax for “individual welfare.” Congress has merely the power to tax for “…general Welfare…” which include facilities like water, roads, electricity, telecom, post office, currency, etc. ALL use the items similarly in amounts and frequency (people eat foods differently, Kosher as an example).
general – ALL
wel – well
fare – get along
– Congress has merely the power to regulate the STREAM of commerce, not any aspect or facet of the design, engineering, production or marketing of products which are private property, “…in exclusion of every other individual…,” including Mr. Government, made by free enterprises which are similarly private property.
_________________________________
U.S. Constitution
Article I
Section 8
– The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
– To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
– To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
– To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
Democrat activist disguised as reporter to Harry Reid: “Aren’t you worried Republicans will just get rid of the filibuster on the Supreme Court…”
Dingy Harry: “Let ’em do it. Why in the world would we care?…If they want a simple majority, fine.”
Thank you Scott. With the posting of that smoking gun video clip, I move that Jon Turley close this posting to any additional comments. Case closed.
Thank you Scott for that short video I don’t remember seeing.
If a political animal such as a President nominates the candidate and political animals such as Senators confirm that person, then the judge will be a political animal. We have witnessed politics as the driving force decisions made by the Supreme Court, such as with Scalia. We have witnessed both parties tailoring the system to gain dominance on the court. The 60% rule forces compromise but only if the Senate is proportionately divided.
It would seem that the judges should come from their own kind with safeguards there instead of from the dysfunctional circus that is the system of representations, in other words the oligarchy. If it was necessary for at least 6 out of nine Supreme Court Judges to decide on a replacement then the court would be more likely to be what it was designed for, representation of the majority of the people. The majority of Americans do not want Kavanaugh on the court. The biggest oligarch to ever sit in the White House, the most biased, and the least qualified nominated him. A Republican dominated Senate confirmed him. Kavanaugh is not SCOTUS material yet there he is. Trump is not Presidential material, did not win the majority vote, and yet there he is.
It seems that the sacred system of safeguards is not working. One side gets what it wants as there are only two sides, one more than a dictatorship. The system of arriving at representatives is a farce perpetrated by the elite few percent, oligarchs, and special interests. There is next to nothing of substance discussed during an election. The system is based on power determined by those not up for election, those who place those up for election in the arena, those candidates that are already bought and paid for, if not by the oligarchs then by the party, or both.
The Supreme Court could be its own animal if it were not connected to this festering failure of a system. The essence of the Supreme Court due to the terms of its participants, that span several dynasties, must be non political bias. Who better to choose the judges than the judges. At the least, the Supreme Court should nominate the candidate by a 6 out of 9 choice and the Senate could be employed to confirm that candidate. This would insure a better balance than the present system. As it is, eventually the memory of the disgraceful behavior of one party will determine disgraceful behavior of the other as the power moves from one side of puppets to the other.
Kavanaugh and Obama nominee Merrick Garland voted the same at the rate of 97%. If your stupid, pathetic lie that Kavanaugh votes as a “political animal,” then Merrick Garland is a GOP hack.
F for fact based, F for effort, Isaac.
Correction: “…if your claim that Kavanaugh was a political animal was true, then Garland was a GOP hack…”
You remind me of that movie ‘Time Bandits’ where John Cleese asks the robber, “And how long have you been a robber?”. The robber answers “Four foot six.”. Talk about not being able to read. You must be a Republican Trumpster.
Remember, they were told not to believe their eyes or ears.
“political animal”. You can only apply this phrase to Kavanaugh through blatant disregard for his voting record. He was highly endorsed by the ABA. I realize this is difficult for the Left to grasp, but the point is not to be a political animal, but rather to apply the law as it is written. The Left opposes anyone who does not legislate, from the far Left, from the bench.
Kavanaugh just applies the law, which is why he has such an excellent record on his rulings not being overturned on appeal.
If more Democratic judges would do the same, then it wouldn’t matter what private political affiliation anyone had on the Bench.
Everyone is a political animal to some degree. Degrees, that’s the issue. Kavanaugh was heavily criticized by the ABA when he was up for appeals court judge. He had a reputation of being belligerent, hard to work with, and heavily biased to the right. He fine tuned himself and received the endorsement of the ABA. Kavanaugh has always expressed that he would turn the issues of Roe vrs Wade over to the states, that he was for insulating those in high positions of power from being criminally liable when in office, etc. This attitude, however well masked for a dozen years, came out in the interview in stark contrast with what is desirable in a Supreme Court Judge. Kavanaugh was politically biased in his accusations, belligerent and rude, sleazy beyond any degree he would accept in his own court, confrontational, etc. The old Kavanaugh is there. Now its on the highest court in the land and will be so for decades to come. Kavanaugh might turn out all right, however the whole process was designed to side step a proper investigation. There were many, many people attesting to a behavior that he adamantly denied. They were not included in the FBI investigation. The process was rigged and the right wing pick installed. Read my post and respond to those proposals; that Supreme Court Judges should not be appointed by the President but by a majority of 6 out of 9 Supreme Court Judges. The law is the domain of lawyers and judges. It is manipulated, perverted, subverted, and as with the current President, purchased by politicians and the elite. The law should not be designed by those who pervert it. If the system is changed then it applies to both sides. The systems are flawed.
First, though a small minority of R’s may have suggested it, the Repub leadership and majority of the R’s never let it happen because they are far smarter at understanding the long-term effects of policy than Dem’s/liberals who are focused on emotional and short term policy making. Not only on the Filibuster but on so much of their policy over the last 40 years, ending with the $2Trillion hoax called ACA. If you want short term, ill-advised policy making vote Dem. If you want strategic, well-crafted, long term benefit in policy vote Republican.
Sheree, you say if we ‘want strategic, well-crafted, long term benefit in polcy’ we should vote Republican..???
Republicans keep denying Climate Change when warming has clearly begun. And you think Republicans have more ‘foresight’???? They can’t see the future is here!
The University of East Anglia crew weren’t manipulating the data because they liked the raw results.
Tarbarrok, Fire Season in California is now a year-round issue. That was not the case 30 years ago. And we now have extensive documentation that Greenland is melting. The Arctic Circle is now open to shipping in the summer months. That would have seemed like Science Fiction 30 years ago. The list of changes goes on and on. Only the most obstinate of fools would deny these changes.
The earth has warmed and cooled due to a lot of factors so that means climate change exists. However, before using the term climate change the term was global warming and before that it was global cooling. The Liberals got rid of global warming because almost everyone agrees climate changes and the manipulation of data by Mann and others made the words global warming too suspect. I believe in the first millenium there was farming in Greenland. Then it got cooler and farming decreased. Now it may or may not be getting warmer. Numbers are suspect because many global theorists lied.
Some of the questions are:
1) whether man is causing SIGNIFICANT global warming
2) whether or not man needs to address that problem now.
3) can anthing significant be done by man today
4) Wasting money prevents that money to be used for finding effective solutions if the problem exists
5) If the problem really exists and needed to be rapidly altered there are ways that have been considered that could rapidly reduce warming that exclude the leftist ideas that will not work
6) pollution is a problem most agree on and that should be dealt with.
7)The question that should be in one’s mind is whether the change will be quick or slow. If the change is quick leading towards destruction, nothing being done today can prevent it from happening. If the change is slow less people will die in the near future.
8) Rich communities are able reduce pollution and possibly “global warming”. Poorer communities create more emissions for their basic needs.
9)None of the nations in the Paris Global Warming accord met their targets and the biggest polluters were excluded. The US that withdrew has done more to reduce pollution and met its presumed targets.
Peter get a safe space and take Valium on a regular basis.
I think Professor Turley is violating civility for people like Peter. Peter needs a safe space and this blog should provide one.
Can you tell me when the warming clearly began???
Plus, why don’t you use “PS” as your name here???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Again, appeal to an emotional cause does not sustain logical cogent policy making illustrated by your emotional logical fallacy that the “future is here.” (Of course it is!!) . The question of anthropogenic warming concerns of climate alarmists vs biotic and systemic changes discussed by climate scientists are complex and absolutely need more foresight than illogical arguments such as yours and many of your fellow libs. You proved my point!!
Sheree, show me a mainstream, peer-reviewed science publication that supports your assertions here.
You want a comprehensive bibliography? Are you always this inane? Critics of the IPCC have a body of professional publications of their own. That aside, we know from Wikileaks that the peer-review process has been corrupted and manipulated by creatures such as those employed at the University of East Anglia. Among the critics has been Richard Lindzen, a member of the National Academy of Scientist and one of the country’s most eminent climatologists.
Only in right-wing media are people really concerned about East Anglia. Climate changes are now so obvious that deniers are essentially flat-earthers. Only in the U.S. are we still having this stupid argument.
That, Peter , is because you are totally unaware of the world around you and you get lost as soon as graphs and numbers appear.
“warming has clearly begun.”
Ice used to cover much of the world that is now farmed and a lot of that ice disappeared before humans arrived. Peter, go back to grade school.
Allan, almost all your comments are stupid but this stands out as ‘exceptionally stupid’; reminding us again of what a ridiculous old fart you are.
Peter, say what you want. Anyone with a brain recognizes you to be an idiot. You bring no facts or intellect to the table. Go play with the rat.
The filibuster is an inane practice and Reid was right to engineer it’s circumscription. What needs to be done is to eliminate the rest of it. There are too many avenues for obstructive vetos to be cast in our political system.
I can’t stand to see your post sitting at the top of the page all by it’s lonesome. So . . . Blah, blah, blah. Yad yada.
Dear Ms. Late4HotStinkyYoga: You just demonstrated how lefty loons prefer to suppress alternative views instead of logically addressing them.
Late4Dinner – your comment was apropos. I was just reading an article on this almost ubiquitous trend of Liberals and Progressives’ inability to discuss issues. They go ad hominem every time. Every. Time. The general trend is they do not address any of the points raised in a cogent manner, but rather employ juvenile name calling or character attacks. I must say that’s been my experience, as well. And then your comment popped up.
You should know that the general consensus is when someone does not address your points, the implication is they can’t, and therefore try to call attention away from this weakness.
I propose that debate class become popular again in high school. Classical education lays down the discerning mind. First, children learn rote facts, then they learn how to analyze arguments, and by high school, they are thinking for themselves. This approach is the trivium. One can clearly see its lack, as college students across the country are reduced to quivering tears or hysterical screaming when they realize that someone with an opposing point of view plans to visit their campus.
There’s nothing per se wrong with the trivium and quadrivium. However, it was never imparted to more than a single-digit minority. Also, the field of knowledge is much wider and more specialized.
What we really need is solid basic education followed (for most) by VoTech.
Obstruction is a feature not a bug.
It’s a bad feature which should be removed from the final product.