Stop Me Before I Vote Again

What fresh horror lies in wait at the Democrats' next "overhaul"? Flying robots that extract your wallet from your pants and take it straight to some McDuckian Money Bin in Hartford?"

Hee hee hee. I was about to say that this is the funniest line I've read at SMBIVA since Owen's ode to Tom Lantos, but then I remembered that the insco HQ's have mostly vacated Hartford.

I got really depressed as I read the decision. Roberts has actually done us a favour here: he's pulled back the curtain a bit on the whole "government of enumerated powers" illusion. His decision is perfectly in line with legal precedent: after all, the government essentially already has an individual mandate for every citizen to buy a predator drone or a cluster bomb from a defence contractor (stored and maintained by the CIA and US Army, of course), so why not health insurance too? Once the power to tax is unrestricted, do you really even need the commerce clause anymore?

Here's another nice antidote to all of the pwog victory dancing over this ruling.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/scotus-takes-away-medicaid-stick-but-leaves-big-carrot.html

"Of course it's consistently corporatist, which is why it upheld Obie's scandalous giveaway to the insurance companies -- fixing the insurance mess by handing the whole thing over to the very people who have caused the insurance mess. "

Which is, as you stated, why we all knew it would be upheld anyway. My only surprise was that Kennedy voted against, I'd figured it would survive 6-3. But I never doubted that it would be upheld. There was a thread some time ago in which we all predicted thus. There's some small satisfaction in being proved right I guess.

Once the power to tax is unrestricted, do you really even need the commerce clause anymore?

The drug war proudly stands on that clause. Gives it a veneer of legitimacy.

Speaking of legitimacy, Roberts has provided some to the oligarchs. The rabble have been restless lately about the behavior of the elites. Thanks to his vote, you'll see talk about how the long national nightmare is over. Finally an elite institution that works!

I believe the host and/or commenters at this very site predicted that Roberts could be counted on to deliver for the insurers. Did he ever, and all by his "conservative" lonesome. Follow the money, as the man in the garage said....

Yes, we did. But every so often a wild irrational hope springs up.....

"My only surprise was that Kennedy voted against, I'd figured it would survive 6-3."

Ditto, Drunk. I almost gave "points" on my many wagers. Which you might be happy to know were all beverage bets. I won't be paying for a cocktail for months.

There really were two clear markers here: Roberts wouldn't screw the insurers. And conventional "wisdom" (at its most herd-like conventional) had it being overturned 5-4.

Oh, and Intrade had it something like a 75% likelihood that the mandate would get tossed.

Like everyone else here I accurately called this one. This is the status update that I posted around 8:15 this morning (just to give my liberal friends and relatives something to think about the rest of the day):

"Looking forward to seeing whether the far right-wing Supreme Court will strike down our conservative president’s corporate health care reform law (modeled on the Republican Party’s 1993 health care proposal) and deny major insurance companies a trillion dollars in new revenue over the course of the next decade. My prediction is that they’ll uphold it."

I'm assuming that all the Republican-appointed justices drew straws to see who had to vote with the Democrat-appointed justices and Roberts picked the short straw.

My opinion is that Obamacare is an utter non-issue; it's a sop to replace genuine political debate.

Ugh, all this post-ruling discussion has given me a wretched hangover, and my throbbing brain feels like the sound block being struck by fatface cartoon judge's gavel

glue licker , it's not the discussion , it's the effect of the image alone as well .. . , said all seeing and feeling .. .

Tuesday morning -- all morning, beginning with Morning Joe -- the MSNBC babblers were yammering endlessly about the then-impending Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. As depressing as it was, at least it was a welcome break from having to hear the Morning Joe babblers wistfully eulogizing Nora Ephron, as they'd been doing nonstop since Monday morning. In fact, the only time Morning Joe took a break from babbling about the imminent Supreme Court decision, it was so they could go back to weeping over Nora Ephron some more.

So, anyway... around 11am-ish or so, MSNBC continues with its endless Obamacare coverage, with a graphic listing the eye-watering costs of such mundane procedures as appendectomies ($67,000). MSNBC's mid-morning generically handsome white dude with a junior-exec haircut had as a guest commentator Pwog Amerika's favorite Obama Girl, Melissa Harris-Lacewell-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuit-Barrel-Perry. Ms. Perry went on at length about the individual mandate, and about how it helped the insurance industry, in her usual annoyingly cheerful tone. Yeah, that's right, nothing about all the piss-poor underpaid wage slaves who still won't have access to quality healthcare, just a lot of chirping about how it helps the insurance industry. Mr. Handsome Junior Exec Haircut White Guy chimed in with his speculation about why the individual mandate wasn't more popular ("Americans don't like being told what to do..." no shit, Sherlock), and the various problems it might encounter, such as it being hard to enforce, and commenting that the penalties might not be harsh enough, invoking the irksome comparisons to car insurance, and wrapping up with a restatement of Obama's crass "skin in the game" commentary of a couple of years ago.

What especially stuck in my craw was Mr. Handsome Junior Exec Haircut Guy's comment that forcing us to tithe to the insurance industry would "keep the freeloaders out" of emergency rooms. So, if I'm some underpaid wage slave who can barely afford to pay his rent and feed himself -- let alone buy health insurance -- hoping and praying that I don't suffer a catastrophic illness or serious injury that'd drive me into bankruptcy, and I get in an accident driving home and break a leg or something and have to go to an ER without insurance, that makes me a freeloader? Of course, Melissa Harris-Lacewell-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuit-Barrel Perry didn't even call him on it, didn't even flinch; she just sat there with that happily smug look on her face waiting for Mr. Handsome to finish up so she'd get to chirp some more.

Christ, I want to knee MSNBC in the groin so fucking bad. I want to knee MSNBC in the groin and, while it's on the ground doubled up in pain, kick it in the teeth and then spit on it after eating a Snickers bar.

D'ahh, cripes, I wish this blog had a post editor. My first paragraph up there, beginning with:

Tuesday morning -- all morning, beginning with Morning Joe -- the MSNBC babblers were yammering endlessly about the then-impending Supreme Court decision on Obamacare...

Should read "Wednesday morning". Today's Friday, isn't it. Christ. Sorry about that.

I hope it's Friday because I'm not coming in tomorrow.

Hey Mike, I notice that you don't blame the DW for once for your exposure to so much Morning Joe.

Don't watch it then. It 'll never make you happy.

Question to the pundits: Does this spell the end for Peace Laureate administration??

Boink sez on 06.29.12 @18:55:
Hey Mike, I notice that you don't blame the DW for once for your exposure to so much Morning Joe.

Well, this isn't really about her; it's about repeated exposure to MSNBC's "progressive" commentators -- except for Morning Joe, the comic relief -- and its deleterious effect on my brain.

Don't watch it then. It 'll never make you happy.

I don't have a lot of control over that. It's her TV set and her satellite subscription, so if she wants to pummel her ostensibly Liberal ears with that right-wing blowhard Scarborough and his cabal of bobblehead acolytes bright and early in the morning, that's her call. Hell, it's all I can do to get her to turn the TV down to sub-paint-peeling volume when I come to bed (she has about a 60% loss in one ear) and she's falling asleep watching the late rebroadcast of that evening's Rachel Maddow Show. On the upside, it beats the shit out of waking up to her cranking the Today Show, like I did for about thirteen years. Now, it's Morning Joe. I get to hear him shouting THEY'RE NOT GONNA THROW YOUR GRANDMA OUT INTO THE STREET! when confronted with the issue of Social Security cuts going "on the table" in the debt-ceiling Kabuki theater.

There was a stretch there, though, where she was watching the 6am EST rebroadcast of BBC World News on the BBC America channel. The news may not have even been any "better", but it was like an hour of bliss -- something resembling real, actual reporting on real, actual news about real, actual issues and real, actually important events, many of which were happening OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES, and had nothing at all to do with Michael Jackson or the Kardashians. I remember watching BBC World News one morning and being treated to an hour of reports from Russia, Venezuela, Mexico, Burma, East Timor and South Africa and, at the end of the show, all of two minutes' recap of the Michael Jackson trial -- that's right, TWO GODDAMN' MINUTES. The Today Show, at the top of its first hour, pissed away nearly twenty minutes on the goddamn' Michael Fucking Jackson trial.

But, I knew it was too good to last. Now, it's Morning Joe. My only alternative is to start sleeping in the guest bedroom on the third floor, down the hall from the studio, which kind of sends a really bad message.

Question to the pundits: Does this spell the end for Peace Laureate administration??

I sure as shit hope so. It's been really liberating, finally realizing that it doesn't matter who "wins" the "election" and giving myself permission to not give a rat's ass. I'm actually finding myself rooting for Mittens lately -- not because I've "joined the other side", but for the sheer entertainment value of seeing the smug-assed triumphalist smiles wiped off the faces of Liberal Amerika.

A friend got his hearing-impaired wife one of these and they are both satisfied with her TV channel selections.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826159406&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA

Just getting up off my knees from being proclaimed a white male’s insignificant, daydreaming and un needed rib ..(on the 06/25/12/ “wired” “thread”)..with no ‘poster’ argument to the contrary (weeps). ..... Dusting myself off from the painful reality, ...yet again. .......Supposedly amongst intellectuals who proclaim not to believe in Adam’s Rib. (“Mis-judgement” indeed, I am actually a living breathing female human, using a fake url to post ..as I have the sense not to want to be tracked despite the perhaps well meaning intent of Michael’s ‘web site’.)

Oh!, and yeah, what female does not know that the man date is sadism at large? When the majority of uninsured in the UZ are females who can’t afford health insurance .... as, for one, they make, on average, 75% less than males (according to the stats, and I’m betting it’s far less than that ...... when one gets down to the tit and tat of it) for equal work ....if they can spend enough money and time, to make themselves attractive and unthreatening enough, to even have the alpha males (and females who mimic alpha males) bother to consider them.

what female does not know that the man date is sadism at large?

I'm giving that comment a lot of thought, Michael, thanks for the quick response and have as good of a weekend as possible (being a little familiar with the 'East Coast,' in the summer months, I am envying you, though perhaps those times are long past).

(Sorry, my above comment should have read 25% less than males (or 75% of a male’s dollar)).

as i've been looking around a bit to see how you've all been taking in your 'care news down there .. i 'm reading this at length of comments from your mike flug,n '.... , at first on the mention of the tely viewing being unpleasant and wondering why doing then , and if being someone else's .. on .. , i thought that he was living in some communal setting perhaps, , but then on seeing his mention of going to bed .. with the suggest that this is his companion i wondered why someone had become involved with someone that by what they have written here they have little in common with , something of an arranged marrying ?

is that a suggest of something that might try , .. or are you speaking to something of someone else here , said 'er ,not her .. . to schu man''s hipster ..

Schumann's Hipster (why don't *I* have an eponymous hipster, by the way?) has an idee fixe. -- Wasn't that the name of Asterix' dog: Idefix?

MJS, if I understand the situation, the eponym naturally redounds to you. *My* hipster can't really be considered mine because I am, as I've confessed, a few lines of perl that you wrote in order to effect the illusion of multiple writers. I think that was very clever, but of course I would think it's very clever. And things could be a lot worse, as far as I'm concerned. I'm grateful not to have been written in Visual Basic.

Schumann 2.0 will be implemented in Python. And will attract *many* hipsters.

Wow. This is getting to be fun.

The Dog-star rages; sure, without a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out.

Our friend has considerably stepped up his game. I, for one, applaud even the flailing and limping of a Gaddis epigone. It bodes well. There's art in it, struggling to get out. Further goading is clearly in order. It's the least I can do (which suits me, actually).

hal doll is indicated

latest image of oxtrot:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O9XJFoNXy6M/To4SANIRL1I/AAAAAAAAAQ8/bKyk5e-Mml0/s1600/White+rabbit+photos.jpg

hal likely needs naps like mistah charley of why the clusters .. , the person that suggests haldol is always likely familiar with , or in need of ..

immus , .. . only 'an dibles , said the most feminin'