Yesterday’s oral argument before the Supreme Court was most notable in the collapsing of the false narrative used by many Democratic senators and media figures in the Barrett confirmation that the Affordable Care Act was close to being overturned in the case of California v. Texas. That conspiracy theory (of which suggested that the rush to confirm Barrett was to supply the final needed vote) was shattered when both Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh repeated their position in favor of severance — a position that would guarantee the survival of the ACA. What was equally notable however was the slightly pathetic scene of Roberts effectively acknowledging that he might have been a chump in accepting the arguments on the individual mandate eight years ago in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012). For years, Roberts has been on a collision course with himself — and yesterday he had a one-person pileup.
Eight years ago, Roberts sided with the conservative justices that requiring individuals to buy insurance was a flagrant violation of federalism guarantees, a view I shared. But in what read like a last minute addition, he voted with the four liberal justices in declaring that none of that matters because he viewed the individual mandate as a tax. It was a surprising turn, since both sides had denied that this was a tax. But by declaring the individual mandate an exercise of the taxing authority of Congress, Roberts saved the law. He insisted the individual mandate was the thumping heart of ObamaCare, which could not survive without its tax revenue from the healthy young citizens who would pay more into the system than they took out. Roberts wrote that “the individual mandate was Congress’s solution” to the existential problems associated with a national health care system. Likewise, the liberal justices joined Roberts in saying that, without the individual mandate, the other parts of the ACA “alone will not work.”
His decision, refashioning the mandate as a tax, appeared artificial and opportunistic to many of us. It also sowed the seeds of its own destruction by not just resting the survival of ObamaCare on the existence of the tax but by insisting that the law could not survive without it. Congress called his bluff by zeroing out the tax, which was the very thing that Roberts had said was needed to sustain ObamaCare as a constitutional matter.
In the oral argument in 2012, Roberts explored whether Congress could force Americans to buy broccoli to make themselves healthier. While Roberts ultimately ruled that the individual mandate (and broccoli compulsion) was a violation of federalism, he made all of that discussion moot by declaring the individual mandate a tax.
Now, the supporters of the ACA are back and insisting that the individual mandate was never really the essential element that they claimed to the Court. The painful position of Roberts was evident in oral argument:
“Eight years ago, those defending the mandate emphasized that it was the key to the whole act. Everything turned on getting money from people forced to buy insurance to cover all the other shortfalls in the expansion of healthcare. But now the representation is that, oh, no, everything’s fine without it. Why the bait and switch? . . . We spent all that time talking about broccoli for nothing?”
Well, it was not for nothing. It was a bait and switch. What is interesting is that Roberts took the bait and now appears ready to do his own switch. He suggested that he would again save the ACA through severance but do so by recognizing that the basis of his earlier opinion is now invalid. Indeed, Roberts himself could find the individual mandate unconstitutional.
So, Roberts could create a curious precedent: he saved the ACA in 2012 by declaring the individual mandate essential to the survival of Act and then may save the ACA again in 2020 by declaring that the individual mandate is not essential to the survival of the Act. If that seems confusing, welcome to the world of Chief Justice Roberts on the ACA.
“…Biden’s winning base in 477 counties encompasses fully 70% of America’s economic activity, while Trump’s losing base of 2,497 counties represents just 29% of the economy. (Votes are still outstanding in 110 mostly low-output counties, and this piece will be updated as new data is reported.)…
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/11/09/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/
Have you heard of Maslow’s heirarchy of needs ?
In 1900 americans spent 50% of their income on food. Today it is 5%.
That part of the US that accoring to you contributes significantly less to US GDP, is responsible for our fundimental needs.
They do not make our computers, our Iphones, They produce our food, our energy.
See which you can live without longer – your computer or food.
A lot of our food is grown in states that went to Biden, including California,Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin. California is the top agricultural state in the US.
You really want to sell CA agriculture.
CA is a desert. You can not grow anything there without water you steal and subsidize to farmers.
And despite that you are doing everything you can to drive farmers out of CA.
Regardless, the original post refered to COUNTIES – not states.
Can you name a single County in the top 100 food producers that Biden won ?
My State is one of those being contested. We are a major food producing state. There is not a single county in this state that produces meaningful amounts of food that did not go for Trump by HUGE margins.
Just to be clear the test of who should be president is NOT who produces the food.
Just as it is NOT who produces the software.
Bid cities will always have higher GDP and higher cost of living, But they could not exist without the production of necescities by those who do NOT live in big democrat cities.
You claim republicans are stupid – maybe they are – they work there asses off for small rewards to provide you with the standard of living they are accustomed to.
Try reading animal farm. Democrats are the pigs, republicans are the horse.
IN general, blue state taxes flaot the red states, including the farm subsidies and recently the welfare system Trump set up for the farmers who lost the Chinese market for soybeans and other crops.
Look it up.
“IN general, blue state taxes flaot the red states, including the farm subsidies and recently the welfare system Trump set up for the farmers who lost the Chinese market for soybeans and other crops.”
I am well aware of this mostly bogus claim.
First – I oppose welfare – whether to farmers or to anyone else. I oppose it when Republicans do it, and when democrats do.
I oppose subsidizing Farmers, I oppose subsidizing Planned parenthood.
That said farm subsidies are Are small potatoes. And the federal welfare funding to California alone is about 30% of the entire welfare system. Add in a handful of other BLUE states and you have 70% of all welfare spending going to Blue States.
The claim that blue states subsidize red states is manufactured in a statistically fraudulent way. It rests on the fact that Federal subsidies such as welfare make up a far larger portion of the budgets of red states than blue. All that actually means is that red states governments do not spend nearly as much as blue ones. it does NOT means blue states subsidize red ones.
“Look it up.”
Take your own advice.
And try some critical thinking.
$28 billion to farmers is small potatoes?
Do you have a clue ?
California alone receives 98.7B fromt he federal government for Welfare.
Total US Welfare spending is just under $700B.
I will be happy to end ALL Farm Subsidies. I will be happy to end them Unilaterally.
They are a bad idea and they distort the price and production of food.
I want farmers answerable to consumers not government.
That does not change the fact that Farm subsidies are about 1/200000th of the federal budget.
While Welfare spending is about 1/6th.
Yes, Farm Subsidies are small potatoes.
Math.
Here you go John Say. Filibuster this:
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700
Apparently you can not read.
I opposed the Covid stimulus bills – both current and previous.
I oppose all stimulus bills.
I oppose the vast majority of government spending.
As to your nonsense chart. I am not interested in manufactured “dependency rankings”.
AS I noted before – Blue states continue to get far more federal money – both overall, despite the fact that there are fewer of them.
And per capita.
Regardless, we can solve this issue trivially – end all government monies to states PERIOD.
If you honestly think red states are more dependent – then that will be there problem.
But most wise people grasp that blue states would be hurt the most by far.
Even if you were right about Dollars – which you are not.
What will farmers do if federal subsidies end ?
They will raise prices or lower costs or both.
What will blue states do when mass transit subsidies end ?
Regardless you are blind to fundimental moral issues.
“Buy the sweat of thy brow, thou shalt earn they daily bread”
You are not owed anything beyond respect for your rights.
I think your claim that red states get more from the federal government than Blue is ludicrously stupid.
I think you are ludicrously stupid if you think there is not a single red state that would not be better off reciving nothing from the fderal government and seeing its federal taxes cut to the 5% of GDP that Lincoln managed to conduct the civil war under.
But if you are somehow correct – Red or Blue CUT THEIR SUBSIDIES – ALL OF THEM.
Fresno County is a top 10 food producer and went for Biden. It’s not the only top 100 agricultural county that went for Biden.
And you have actual data for that ?
https://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/lead_n_spotlight/960526_title__90771_4waufvrp9.jpg
“…..The Dominion software was used in only two of the five counties that had problems in Michigan and Georgia, and in every instance there was a detailed explanation for what had happened. In all of the cases, software did not affect the vote counts.
In the two Michigan counties that had mistakes, the inaccuracies were because of human errors, not software problems, according to the Michigan Department of State, county officials and election-security experts. Only one of the two Michigan counties used Dominion software.
Issues in three Georgia counties had other explanations. In one county, an apparent problem with Dominion software delayed officials’ reporting of the vote tallies, but did not affect the actual vote count. In two other counties, a separate company’s software slowed poll workers’ ability to check-in voters.
“Many of the claims being asserted about Dominion and questionable voting technology is misinformation at best and, in many cases, they’re outright disinformation,” said Edward Perez, an election-technology expert at the OSET Institute, a nonprofit that studies voting infrastructure. “I’m not aware of any evidence of specific things or defects in Dominion software that would lead one to believe that votes had been recorded or counted incorrectly.”
Right-wing voices across the internet this week have claimed incorrectly that Dominion was responsible for mistakes in vote counts, and President Trump shared a Breitbart article on Twitter that incorrectly tied the Michigan issues to separate problems in Georgia.
Many of those people have said, contrary to evidence, that Dominion software was used to switch votes. Some people even suggested that the company was doing the bidding of the Clintons, a conspiracy theory that was shared on Twitter by President Trump. On Wednesday, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, said he was in contact with “whistle-blowers” from Dominion, though he did not provide evidence.
Dominion, originally a Canadian company that now has its effective headquarters in Denver, makes machines for voters to cast ballots and for poll workers to count them, as well as software that helps government officials organize and keep track of election results.
Georgia spent $107 million on 30,000 of the company’s machines last year. In some cases, they proved to be headaches in the state’s primary elections in June, though officials largely attributed the problems to a lack of training for election workers.
Dominion did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Antrim County, Mich., unofficial results initially showed President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. beating Mr. Trump by roughly 3,000 votes. But that didn’t seem right in the Republican stronghold, so election workers checked again.
It turned out that they had configured the Dominion ballot scanners and reporting software with slightly different versions of the ballot, which meant that the votes were counted correctly but that they were reported incorrectly, state officials said. The correct tallies showed Mr. Trump beat Mr. Biden by roughly 2,500 votes in the county.
In Oakland County, Mich., election officials also spotted an error after they first reported the unofficial counts. They realized they had mistakenly counted votes from the city of Rochester Hills, Mich., twice, according to the Michigan Department of State.
The revised tallies showed that an incumbent Republican county commissioner had kept his seat, not lost it. Oakland County used software from a company called Hart InterCivic, not Dominion, though the software was not at fault.
Both errors, which appeared to go against Republicans, spurred conspiracy theories in conservative corners of the internet. That drew a response from Tina Barton, the Republican clerk in Rochester Hills, Mich., the city that had its votes briefly counted twice.
“As a Republican, I am disturbed that this is intentionally being mischaracterized to undermine the election process,” she said in a video she posted online. “This was an isolated mistake that was quickly rectified.”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/11/technology/election-results-trump-biden?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage#no-dominion-voting-machines-did-not-cause-widespread-voting-problems
JF – the fact that Dominion Software resulted in an 10,000 vote swing in MI in a single county is a HUGE problem.
The claim of “Human error” – is a poor fig leaf.
No one is claiming that the software used in that county did not count about 6000 Trump votes as Biden votes.
Dominions claim that was because of a failure to update software by that county itself has myriads of problems.
Why did any software exist that counted votes incorrectly ? To the exent it existed at all how did it ever get on a voting machine in any county ?
Beyond that a mistake that was made one place could easily be made other places.
I would note that humans counting votes – using their Mark I eyeball DO NOT make 6000 errors in the same direction without fraud.
The fact that a single location had an error – regardless of the cause that resulted in 6000 votes being counted for the opposite candidate is a problem that requires every single place that used Dominion equipment to hand validate the results.
John, what you call a “fact” isn’t a fact.
“John, what you call a “fact” isn’t a fact.”
Because you say so ?
Regardless – your out in left field.
The FACT is that 6000 votes in a michigan county were improperly flipper from Trump to Biden.
The FACT is that all those votes were counted on a Dominion system,
Fraud ? Maybe. Human error ? Maybe.
Regardless, it is a FACT that it is possible to have a Dominion System tabulate the vote in error – by a large margin.
And we have no way to know that same error has not occured in many other places in both Michigan and throughout the US,
If you want people to trust the results of the election – then you will join in demanding that we assure that the election was conducted without either fraud or error. Human or otherwise.
Regardless, for good reason no sane person trusts you.
You noted that only one of the michigan counties used Dominion software.
That makes this WORSE.
You seem to think that “human error” solves the problem.
It does not. If the election results are in error by the numbers in 2 counties in Michigan – NO MATTER WHAT THE CAUSE, then the error rate for the system is WAY TO HIGH.
There are lots of claims by Republicans of Fraud.
While I think alot of those claims are credible – it matters very little whether Biden won by 10,000 fraudulent votes – or by 10,000 votes resulting from any other form of error no matter how innocent.
You do not seem to grasp this is not something we can get wrong – FOR ANY REASON.
Anhy significant error of any kind is good reason to look thoroughly for the same or other similar error.
I loved when Gilda Radner played Lisa Lupner. She spoke of how he died of Lupner’s Disease..being born w/o a spine. Roberts faces the same fate.
But how will we recognize each other?
“Democrats Propose Sending Republicans To ‘Unity Camps’“
– CNN, Wash Post, Babylon Bee, whatever
“ATLANTA (AP) — The 2020 election unfolded smoothly across the country and without any widespread irregularities, according to state officials and election experts, a stark contrast to the baseless claims of fraud being leveled by President Donald Trump following his defeat.
Election experts said the large increase in advance voting — 107 million people voting early in person and by mail — helped take pressure off Election Day operations. There were also no incidents of violence at the polls or voter intimidation…..
Ahead of Election Day, the pandemic upended longstanding voting plans and forced election officials to make systemic changes largely on the fly. They did so with limited federal money to cover increased costs for mail ballots, which take more staff and money to send, process and count…
Some states that expanded mail-in voting to make it safer to cast a ballot during the virus outbreak lean Republican and voted for Trump — Nebraska, North Dakota and Montana. He has raised no concerns about the results there…
Among the many lawsuits filed since Election Day is one in Nevada by the Trump campaign alleging voter fraud. Without explanation, Trump tweeted that the state is “turning out to be a cesspool of Fake Votes.”
Such claims have put pressure on Republican election officials fielding scores of reports of fraud that so far have turned out to be human error or limited in scope.
Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, said her office wouldn’t quantify how many complaints it had received, adding, “Many voter fraud complaints lack any evidence and are more complaints about process or policy.”
In Iowa, Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, ordered all counties in the state to double-check results after a data entry error was discovered in one precinct.
“These human errors are unfortunate and frustrating, but the system is working,” he said.
On Monday, Georgia’s two U.S. senators, both Trump supporters facing close runoff elections that could determine which party controls the Senate next year, called on the state’s top election official, a fellow Republican, to resign over unspecified claims of election mismanagement.
The official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said he would not step down and assured the public there had been no widespread problems.
“Was there illegal voting? I’m sure there was, and my office is investigating all of it,” Raffensperger said. “Does it rise to the numbers or margin necessary to change the outcome to where President Trump is given Georgia’s electoral votes? That is unlikely.”
Studies have repeatedly shown that voter fraud is exceptionally rare…
The federal agency charged with leading efforts to secure U.S. elections has said there were no significant problems aside from small, ordinary glitches.
This year’s presidential election marked a significant step in the use of paper voting records, with more ballots being cast either on paper or with an electronic voting machine that generates a paper backup than in any previous election. The election was also the most transparent. Several election offices offered live webcams to show the ballot-review process and added the ability for voters to track their ballots through the process.
“The system held up given the extraordinary circumstances that election officials faced,” said Amber McReynolds, who leads the National Vote at Home Institute. “Election officials managed to do their jobs even though, in most cases, they had one hand tied behind their back.””
Nice cut and paste – irrelevant to the subject of this comment, and wrong to boot…
His handler at Correct-the-Record also had him posting poll results throughout the campaign. You know, from the people who told you Susan Collins was behind in every poll taken for oh, about six months.
https://www.businessinsider.com/maine-senate-race-susan-collins-vs-sara-gideon-fundraising-polls-2020-8
This is what $39 million buys you in Maine.
Allen, Joe Friday is a paid ChiCom troll.
All he does is cut and paste articles from The Ministry of Truth (aka/ the mainstream media).
Really you have a study that proves conclusively that voter fraud is rare ?
How exactly do you do that ?
How do you KNOW that only legitimate voters voted ? How do you KNOW that no one voted twice ?
Please prove to me that our elections are free from fraud ?
Facts, Data, Logic.
One average the voter registration rolls of ever state have about 20% names that are not eligable to vote. Whether those are dead people, or fake people, or people who moved to another state. There are several large cities int he US where there are more registered voters than people. This despite the fact that for decades federal law has required states to purge their rolls of dead people, or people who have moved elsewhere or people who have not voted in 3 cycles.
So how is it that you or any study can reach the conclusion you claim that they have ?
What is your evidence that voter fraud is rare ?
In the democratic primaries not that many months ago democrats, and democratic judges in democratic districts threw out more than 200,000 mailin votes from 5 states. One city alone threw out 50,000 votes.
Why ? Why then ? When not right now ? Why was there so many problems with mailin voting in May and now you claim NONE in November ?
If you can not answer these – if you can not persuade the voters who lose elections that the process itself was honest, that only eleigable voters voted, that no one else voted, that no fake people voted, that no one sat infront of a voting machine and fed in the same ballot over and over (3 convictions for that in Philadelphia in 2020).
If there was nothing to hide in this election – why did you work so hard to hide it ?
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Lets do a REAL audit of this election, and if we find significant fraud then lets punish those involved and make absolutely sure it never happens again.
Lets examine the ballots – lets make sure we have the same number of ballots as votes – with a small margin of error.
Lets make sure that we do not have thousands of ballots processed at the same time that were all filled in the same.
Lets make sure that no ballots were added to the system from improper sources.
Lets check the envelopes of mailin ballots – are they properly post marked ? are batches all in the same pen, do the signatures match ? Is the person a legitimate voter – are they alive, do they live in the state are they a real person ?
You are an idiot if you think there will be no evidence of fraud.
The only question is how much fraud does there appear to be ?
If there are serious reasons to beleive that the fraud could be sufficient to tip the election – then the results can not be certified.
If you are so sure that there is no fraud – then you have nothing to worry about.
BTW these are not things we shoudl do in 2020.
These are things we should do ALWAYS.
Further, it is not at all difficult to radically reduce the possibility of voter Fraud.
Finally, absent a thorough audit of the entire process, you are going to spend the next 4 years with millions of people convinced that this election was a fraud.
If people do not beleive the results of the election – that will cause huge problems.
That will encourage those people to behave lawlessly.
You think that a bad police shooting can result in mass protests and “legitimate” violence – what about a fraudulent election ?
Further if the losing voters and the losing party beleives you have cheated. Why do you expect they will not cheat in the future ?
Do you think you are the only ones capable of cheating ?
This is the route to a bannana republic – and you are leading the way.
Rare doesn’t mean nonexistent.
They know it’s rare because they do random audits. There are even state laws that require random audits, like Kentucky’s regulation 117.383(8).
They do not “Know” anything.
You can not randomly audit voting.
Most forms of voter fraud are impossible to detect absent a voting system designed to prevent them.
How do you “audit” mailin ballots to determine whether votes were paid for ?
Regardless, again EVIDENCE.
Describe exactly how you are going to randomly “audit” voting as it currently is to determine the degree of fraud ?
I own two apartment buildings. Mail arrives there for former tenants – people who have not lived there in decades.
I would guess that atleast two dozen applications for mail in ballots arrived at my apartment buildings – that I know of.
Most tenants put mail that they receive that is not for them in my mail box.
Regardless, there were atleast two dozen applications for mail in ballots that I or any tenant could have filled out and got a ballot that was not theirs and filled it out and sent it in.
So how are you going to detect and prevent that ?
How do you prevent anyone with access to voter registration lists from searching them for registered but invalid voters and requesting ballots for them and filling them out and sending them in ?
There is no means after the fact to audit voting for all but a few forms of fraud.
There are no means at all to prevent some forms of mailin voting fraud.
This is why the EU bans it.
OK, you don’t “know” anything either.
I “know” a great deal. In one of my roles, it is my job to design systems that are secure and reliable. Systems that are far more complex that elections.
We KNOW how to conduct elections with minimal error. And we KNOW how to conduct elections with large amounts of undetectable and uncorrectable fraud.
The US as a country – our state department has refused to recognize election results in nations that conducted their elections in the way we just did.
As noted previously the EU opposes mail in voting – there is no possibe way to make it secure – free from fraud.
As noted preciously – even democrats rejected 20% of mailin votes in their own primaries just 6 months ago.
It is hypocracy to expect that the general election was significantly better.
Finally you can not audit a system that is designed to destroy the information you need to properly audit it.
And biden LOST in Kentucky.
Nelson Mandela, whom the Democrats and quite a few Republicans have idolized, insisted that every voter have a photo ID when voting for the election in South Africa in 1994. He also wanted other tough measures to guard against fraud because he recognized it as a reality in our world. If every American voter had a passport (the State could provide these free to the indigent) there would be a massive reduction in voting fraud.
The real id act makes compliant State ID’s – drivers licenses into a form of national ID.
Every state with voter ID laws provides State ID free to indigents.
“a thorough audit of the entire process”
John, that is what is now underway in Georgia.
Georgia will act as the Canary in the vote fraud coal mine, and the Canary will die a rapid death.
As a result, it will lead to other States having to do the same as Georgia.
BTW, in case you failed to notice. This entire election scam was repeatedly telegraphed by the MSM and the DNC apparatus for months.
The same people who spent four years delegitimizing an election using a debunked Russian conspiracy theory, are now lecturing others about delegitimizing an election.
There are some very serious problems that the Georgia Recount can not address or fix.
The Georgia Recount WILL uncover issues with machine counts.
It WILL likely expose if there is a meaningful problem with Dominion Software.
It WILL expose whether tallies much the number of actual voters, But if can not correct such errors if it finds them, and it can not identify the cause of those errors.
It MIGHT be able to expose the proportion of innelegable Voters that cast votes – but it can not correct that error or identify the person responsible.
The requirement of secret ballot – which itself is a critical fraud prevention method, makes it impossible to correct a wide variety of errors/fraud After the Fact.
One of the reason that chasing out election observers is such a big deal is that they are the last opportunity to correct a variety of forms of fraud. While we can after the fact DETECT many of them, because the process of verifying that a person/ballot is legitimate is divorced from counting the votes, and the connection between the voter identification and the ballot is one way, the only remedy for the most common forms of fraud is to toss the entire election.
Yes, JF – 72% of Republicans and even a minority of democrats think that there was substantial fraud in this election.
Further we have had 4 years in which the media, the left, social media, democrats, and government officials have burned their credibility to the ground.
No one with a brain is inclined to beleive the same people who told us the 2016 Election was stolen by the Russians. or that Trump colluded with Russians, or that claims about the Biden family corruption and particularly Joe Biden’s knowledge of it were all right wing conspiracy theories.
We Know that 20% of all mailin ballots were rejected by democrats in democratic primaries just a few months ago.
Was this election “stolen” – I do not know. But I have absolutely zero reason to beleive you.
Nor any of the “experts” you cite – your “experts” have failed us constantly, they have no credibility.
As the GA Sec State said announcing the recount – the question is not whether there was fraud in this election – there is fraud in every election, the question is whether it effected the outcome.
The more you try to hide, to count votes in the dark, to act without scrutiny, the more you rant that there is nothing here – while fighting against scrutiny – the more GUILTY you look.
If you beleive Biden outperformed the rest of the democratic party – despite the polls clearly being off – in some states by as much as 15%,
then lets count the vote properly – lets verify every mailin ballot, lets be sure that no one voted twice, that dead and fictitions people did not vote, that people from other states did not vote, that people did not vote for their neighbors, that ….
You know that the EU BANNS Mailin voting – because it is full of Fraud and impossible to secure.
You know that the results and statistics on this election are indistinguishable from elections by Putin or third world countries that the US have condemned.
It is imperative that the tens of millions of people that beleive there was massive fraud are given the oportunity to verify that the was not – and that however much fraud there was has CONSEQUENCES, because absent that they have no reason to beleive their votes will ever be meaningful. That in future elections no matter what that Democrats will manufacture however many votes are needed to win.
And that means that they must resort to something other than elections to restore their liberty – and you do not want that.
JF – your fixation on paper is hillarious.
Prior to the early 20th century ALL elections used 100% paper ballots.
Regardless, prior to 2001 a larger percent of ballots were paper than today.
Absolutely 2000 Bush Gore exposed alot of pereoblems with our voting.
Punched card systems, Butter Fly Ballots and mechanical voting machines had significant issues.
Something needed to be done.
But the 2001 HAV Act was NOT an improvement – the electronic voting machines that the Bushies foist on us were and rfemain a disaster.
Regardless, securing voting is not that difficult. Which begs the question of why is it that one party is the most resistant to doing so ?
Much of the world has elections – we know what leads to fraud and we know how to avoid it.
Why are democrats hell bent on conducting elections in the most fraudulent ways possible ?
This is not Putin’s russia.
But looking at our elections you would think so.
There are myriads of issues with mailin voting.
At the top of the list is that mailin voting permits buying votes – and there is no means to stop that.
The Biden campaign spent $142 for every vote for Biden they received,
Or $1420 if they only bought 10% of the vote, or $14200 if they only bought 1% of the vote.
My point is there is a massive amount of money in elections. We can not prevent that.
But we can easily prevent vote buying.
All that is reguired is in person secret ballots. Because no one will pay for a vote unless they can know they actually received the vote.
Given that we KNOW that in most states 10-20% of the names on voter registration rolls are NOT valid voters – you would think that democrats would join in seeking to purge dead people, fictititous people, people who moved out of state from the rolls as the law requires.
Instead we have Democratic districts where there are more registered voters than people or more votes that registered voters.
And democrats fight like crazy to resist fixing this.
No the system did not hold.
There were no “extraordinary circumstances.
Accross the world people vote in person in places where there are wars going on.
Covid deaths today are less than Cancer deaths every day. and only slightly more than those from heart attacks – every day.
The current covid daily deaths are the same as a bad flu year – and we did none of this nonsense them.
We allow people to go to the bank, to the grocery store – even resturaunts with minor precautions – there is no reason we had to switch to the most fraud prone form of voting.
You were warned months ago – and not just by Trump – but by the disasterous results in your own primaries.
The system did not hold – when tens of millions of people are convinced there was significant fraud – and democrats fight tooth and nail any effort to establish whether that is the case – the system failed.
What a hack and hypocrite TURLEY is boasting about his frequent visits to military battlegrounds but can not be bother to do a blog entry on Veterans Day!
We send our soldiers to foreign lands to fight and sometimes die for the freedom of others, for honest elections.
And those of you on the left want to covert US elections to those of third world countries ?
You ranted falsely that Trump was colluding with Putin.
Tell me how is it that this election differs from one in Russia were the party aparatichs decide the results.
Putin gets away with the corrupt elections in Russia – because Putin and his cronies count the vote in secret out of the public eye, Un observed, with no one but Putin and his cronies to trust regarding the results.
How are was the vote in big democratic cities different ?
Why do you expect Republicans to play by rules you did not in 2022 ?
Apparatchiks in Russia may stuff ballot boxes. They hardly need to. Putin’s constituency is more than ample and he’d have no trouble winning square.
People in Russia are afraid to vote against Putin. The government can see your vote. Russia is not a democracy. There are prominant people in the U.S. who are saying members of the opposing party should be punished. They say this in a free nation. What do you think they say about punishment in a Dictatorship.
Set up your own blog if you don’t like the subject matter of this one.
If the USG cannot force me to buy something, something it has a monopoly on,
how do they get away with denying me my travel freedom overseas unless I pony up $160 for
a passport?
Maybe I’m not so bound up in the legal arguments arising back in 2012, but I do respect the idea that the Chief Justice in both cases
turned away activists who “lost” their say over health care policy through fair elections. As Roberts suggested to the lawyer from Texas,
you may want us to repeal the ACA, “but that is not our job”.
I hope to see the Federal Courts turning a new page in setting aside the lawsuits brought by activists who are looking for policy results while eschewing a full meritocratic debate and vote in Congress.
I would like SCOTUS to help the District Courts differentiate “policy” lawsuits from those where the plaintiff are only seeking individual case relief. I’d like a much more rigorous threshold for the policy lawsuits, whereby, if the policy is currentl;y under consideration in the Congress, the suit is put on ice for the duration of that Congress. The desired impact in non-interference with the political process of hammering out policy.
I’d also raise the bar for “policy” lawsuits that at least one year must pass after a new law comes into effect before any injunctive relief will be entertained…so as to allow a fact base to develop under the new law.
Finally, I’d like to see the lower courts disciplined to be “hands off” undoing a political compromise that formed the basis for legislation.
How often has a party negotiated in bad faith in Congress, agreeing to terms and measures that it plans to have unraveled in the Courts?
I applaud Roberts for showing deference to the work product of Congress & WH regarding ACA — now on two occasions where the legislative losers came to the Court for a fiat decision — circumventing the consent of the governed.
Like him, love him or loathe him, Roberts is a progressive, and for a progressive the only “legal” or “Constitutional” standard is:
*what’s best for the Nation*
at any particular moment in time, in the eye of the beholder or decider of course.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez famously remarked that in any sort of rational political system she and Joe Biden wouldn’t even be in the same political party. Well, the ideological gap between Amy Barrett and progressive John Roberts is on a par with the Cortez-Biden gap.
“What’s best for the nation” is none of comrade Roberts’ —-ing business; the Constitution is.
His business is the manifest tenor of the Constitution which, oh, just incidentally Justice Roberts, denies Congress any power to tax for specific welfare, individual welfare, charity or redistribution of wealth, while providing Congress the power to tax for ONLY “…general Welfare.”
Roberts should have been Drawn and Quartered long ago for abuse of power, usurpation of power, corruption and treason.
The Constitution so severely limits and restricts Congress/government, the vote, which was so rationally limited in 1788 that the turnout was a mere 11.6%, is actually moot.
Roberts is a conservative.
Barrett is an ultraconservative.
Roberts is a conservative and yet I see little evidence of the key tenets or principles that undergird conservatives?
Why denigrate Barrett for holding to the importance of marriage (between and man and woman) and family and following the plain sense of the law? She, as a justice, has one responsibility: to follow the law not to rewrite or adapt it.
Roberts is just an idiot who is more worried about the Supreme Court making waves than being faithful to the constitution.
Barrett’s judicial conduct has yet to be weighed. Quite often judges change on the Supreme Court.
Barrets past record is as a textualist – not an “ultraconservative”
If justices rule consistent with the plain language of the constitution – we can KNOW that scotus rullings we do not like can be changed by amending the constitution. In any other scheme we are lawless and the powers of government are determined by ideology and whimsy.
Roberts has a hook in one side of his mouth and is about to have another hook in the other side.
Fool me once, shame on you. You know the thing!
I think this is running along the lines of three times being the fool.
Speaking of one car pile ups, maybe Turley can explain how the ACA was never in danger from the current SC hearings – hey, he’s written a weeks worth of columns on that claim, but now, in one column repeats the same BS while ending it with the possibility that Roberts will again save it.
Mespo, I think I’m suffering that whiplash you get rich on. Do I have a case against Turley and will you take it?
JF:
Sorry. With your credibility, nobody would take you on as a client.
Or We should just declare the ACA unconstitutional – as it actually is, and be done with this mess.
While the ACA was not quite as bad as the right tried to persuade us, it is expensive both in treasure and in liberty and it offers nothing in return.
The trend in life expectancy was not altered by its passage, it will not be altered by its demise.
Do you ever post anything of substance? Seems not…
Bless his heart. The Chief Justice is the Mitt Romney of the Supreme Court
Or John McCain.
McShame (with an exponent)!
Let’s recap. Turley believes Roberts wrongfully ruled twice to save the ACA but also attacks Democrats & the media for “the false narrative” that the ACA’s future was dangling in the balance at this week’s Supreme Court hearing now that conservatives have a 6 – 3 majority.
Meanwhile, the latest Fox News poll shows 64% of the country wants to keep the ACA while Trump & the Republicans want to kill it, even though they didn’t do that when they controlled all 3 branches of government. And for the past 5 months Trump kept insisting he was about to introduce a big, beautiful health care plan.
Yep, bait & switch.
RP7:
You recap since English seems to evade you. Turley points out Roberts’ flip flop and the false, shameful narrative of the Dims at that equally shameful SCOTUS confirmation hearing. You ignore that and that Trump eviscerated the individual mandate of the ACA which was its Constitutional Achilles Heel and conclude that Trump did nothing when he had the chance.
And yet, you criticize others for inconsistency in their argument. Heal yourself, doc.
Lisa Lupner’s[Gilda Radner] father suffered from Lupner’s Disease, being born w/o a spine. Roberts is another victim of that dreaded disease.
Race, I am pretty sure that is why we haven’t seen Trump in 5 days as he is furiously working to unveil; his health care plan.
And oh yeah, that middle class tax cut he promises every election.
“I am pretty sure that is why we haven’t seen Trump in 5 days”
Yeah, for a guy who’s in the middle of a contested election, it sure seems strange that he’s out golfing and relaxing.
It’s almost as if he knows something……………….
https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-voting-systems-offers-incontrovertible-proof-of-election-hack/
Trump appeared today for Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington. Sundown Joe back in his basement.
Holy Sh*t, you’re still quoting polls???????????
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Guess what 99% of the country do not get to keep ACA just because they want it.
Acts of government must be constitutional. Roberts has essentially addmitted that it never was constitutional – it should have gone down 9-0 and shoud STILL go down 9-0 if the Justices would just read the constitution.
Who cares about inaccurate, misleading or biased polls?
The most significant issue regarding the polls is that the results demonstrate that those associated with those polls are untrustworthy.
They may not be trustworthy because their biases corrupt their work, or just because they are incompetent.
Regardless they are not trustworthy.
If we can not trust the pollsters and the media in one thing, we can not trust them in all things.
When the same people who told us we would see a Democratic blowout tell us there is no fraud in a razor thin election – there is no reason to trust them.
And given that so many making these false predictions are involved in the election process and will benefit from the results, that is all the more reason to not trust the results.
Democrats spent 4 years ranting about ludicrously stupid russian collusion.
Now they want trust and unity ?
Fat Chance.
After what has happened in the polling in the 2016 and 2020 elections you still trust the polls?
“. . .Roberts explored whether Congress to force Americans to buy broccoli to make themselves healthier.”
“. . .Roberts took the base and now appears ready to do his own switch”
Proof reading is improtant.
Proof reading
It’s one word imbecile….Proofreading
Yeah, it is bad when someone is superciliously correcting another, and then commits the same crime he is supposed to be expert at.
Good God what is happening to our nation? Maybe we can get someone to surprise attack us to wake us the hades up. (Don’t anyone get bent out of shape the attack suggestion was just a joke.)
That’s ok VietVet, sometimes I wish an EMP would go off and knock out cell phones so there wouldn’t be a country filled with zombies walking around staring at their phones.
Roberts is a disgrace to the bench. It’s painfully obvious he is being blackmailed and controlled.
It sure feels like it.
The NSA probably has blackmail material on most public officials.
Roberts’ behavior has been peculiar in some venues. (See his attempt to prevent the name of the fake whistle-blower from being uttered on the floor of the Senate). A few years ago, it would have been insane to suggest he’s been blackmailed. Not any longer.
Well his name did appear in those Epstein flight manifests.
Where?
ACA needs to die by Republican hands. Only then can we openly admit that the “market solution” to health care in the US will never work and join the rest of the world with single payer.
join the rest of the world with single payer.
Can you even define ‘single payer’?
Karl Marx can.
It was a typo.
I think he meant to say: “join the rest of the world with single prayer.”
Yeah, Molly, cancer patients can only dream of a ‘market solution’. ..Not..!!
With forced COVID Lockdowns Democrat Governors have killed or have deprived necessary health care to more Americans than any natural or man-made disaster of recent memory. That Democrats / MSM will not acknowledge these millions of Americans tells a bigger story. The mortality rates are already climbing, setting aside suicides due to untreated mental illness
You’ve got to be an alien from a remote moon in the Taurus Constellation. Must be named Taurus Excreta!
Congress cannot tax for individual welfare, specific welfare, charity or redistribution of wealth – Congress has the power to tax for only “…general Welfare.”
The American Founders severely limited and restricted government and Congress.
The American Founders allowed for competitive free market solutions in every instance and in every case.
Americans are free and freeloading parasites are not the burden of U.S. taxpayers, per the Constitution.
Planting seeds. One of the major problems w/ ACA is that while the employer based plans have not experienced run away premiums, the individual family, IFP, (small % of all) market has. Ave premiums more than doubled in first 4-5 yrs. Also many carriers dropped out of the IFP market – much less competition also a result.
Cure Pool the IFP business w/ the employer (group) business. It could easily handle the adverse risk.
In 2021, employer based ealth plan premiums will increase 77% over 2020. In the company I retired from several years ago the premiums were doubling every 2-3 years. I don’t agree with ACA, but your statement about the rise in employer based plans simply isn’t true.
“my employer based health plan premiums”
Health care premiums have been increasing for a couple of decades, especially in the early oughts and the rate of increase slowed after the ACA was passed. Similarly, deductibles started rising before the ACA and have continued ever since. Of course the ACA is no longer what it was written as and needs adjustments, many of them after a decade of attempts to cripple it by the GOP.
“GENERAL WELFARE ONLY”
“COURTS…MUST…DECLARE ALL ACTS CONTRARY TO THE MANIFEST TENOR OF THE CONSTITUTION VOID.”
Congress has the power to tax for ONLY “…general Welfare…,” omitting and, thereby, excluding any power to tax for individual welfare, specific welfare, charity or redistribution of wealth.
The Affordable Care Act does not provide for GENERAL or ALL.
Most Americans DO NOT participate in the Affordable Care Act.
The Affordable Care Act provides for individuals or small groups of individuals.
The Constitution is absolutely and irrefutably clear on the use of the word and the definition of GENERAL or ALL.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
Typo: “took the base” should be “took the bait”
This man is clearly compromised and should be impeached.