Month: June 2012

Subtitle: Or How China Just Pwned America thanks to twenty years of Republican policies.

For years now the GOP economic plan to outsource US jobs to other countries (also ably assisted by certain neo-liberal DLC Dems), such as China, while also relying upon China to finance our national debt was viewed by people like — oh, Republican presumptive presidential nominee, Mitt Romney — as the greatest thing since sliced bread or the wheel, perhaps. The lost jobs in the US of A, the growing income inequality between the super-rich and everyone else, the lowering standards of living for most Americans (heavily subsidized by an ever larger debt burden) — well who in the Republican Party cared about all that? Profits were up and Wall Street was making money in good times and bad (thanks to corporate welfare, bailouts, lower taxes and subsidies for companies that don’t need them). Not the former head of Bain Capital or the current head of Goldman Sachs, that much is certain.

They, like many of their comrades, just assumed that American military might would trump all other considerations when it came to American foreign policy goals (which for the most part are focused on helping — surprise — major American industries such and Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex).

Today, however, our American Empire builders had to back down from a cherished policy, i.e., putting the screws to Iran by using sanctions to keep Iranian oil off the world market as much as possible. You see, for the sanctions to be effective (and I don’t especially mean effective in terms of obtaining leverage in our supposed negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program), other countries have to abide by them. America doesn’t really doesn’t obtain any of our oil from Iran. We can’t, by ourselves, affect Iranian oil revenues unless we are willing to impose a blockade, which, under international law, is an act of war.

Keeping Iranian oil off the market (and incidentally helping oil traders) requires the cooperation of other nations if you don’t intend to start another pointless war in the Mideast. In order to obtain that “cooperation” America said it would impose sanctions on financial institutions in countries that continued to buy Iranian oil. China, coincidentally, buys around one fifth (20%) of all of Iran’s oil and gas exports. So guess what happened today.

China wasn’t very happy about reducing its oil purchases beyond the level set by the American sanctions regime. The Chinese government also happened to notice that the US government had already granted exemptions to its European allies, India and Japan, allowing them a “reprieve” from US financial sanctions even if they bought more Iranian oil than we would like them to do. I’m just guessing here, but I think it is safe to assume that representatives of China’s government had “discussions” with our State Department regarding this unequal treatment by the US government when it came to granting a similar reprieve from these US financial penalties. And so voila! Today, America’s foreign policy with respect to Iran took a back seat to Chinese demands:

(Reuters) – The United States gave China a six-month reprieve from Iran financial sanctions on Thursday, avoiding a diplomatic spat with a country whose support it needs to try to quell violence in Syria and rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

With Thursday’s decision to grant exceptions to China, which buys up to a fifth of Iran’s oil exports, and Singapore, which buys Iranian fuel oil, the Obama administration has now spared all 20 of Iran’s major oil buyers from its unilateral sanctions.

When you destroy your country’s manufacturing base and weaken its economy to the benefit of another, and when that one country owns more of your country’s national debt than any other investor outside the Social Security Trust Fund and the Federal Reserve, all the military power in the world doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. I don’t know what China threatened to make us back down and allow it to continue to buy Iranian oil, but I can imagine it had something to do with their growing economic power vis-a-vis our relative economic weakness.

Now I don’t know what you think about America’s Iranian sanctions regime, but it doesn’t really matter. China demonstrated today that anytime it believes our government’s policies, foreign or domestic, impinge upon its interests, it can demand we back down or weaken those policies, and our government has shown that we will accede to their demands. For the more our economy continues its death spiral, one fueled by tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, increased taxes and financial burdens on the poor and middle classes, and other proposed “austerity” measures (that are doing such a bang up job in Europe at the moment to restore economic stability and growth over there) the greater China’s influence worldwide and here in America – political, technological, and economic – will grow at the expense of our country, and in ways we cannot expect. In short, the more we rely on China to prop up our economy, the more we adopt economic policies that benefit foreign powers such as China, the more the Chinese government and it corporate interests will influence our politics and foreign policy at the expense of the vast majority of the welfare of our people.

Sure, the Romneys and Hedge Fund managers and Wall Street kings will make out okay. A “slash and burn” economic model can still be sustained for another 15 to 20 years and they’ll make out like bandits, destroying America’s manufacturing base and shipping it overseas, just like they have in the past twenty years. It’s funny, but for all the conspiracy theorists on the right who claim Obama is some secret “Manchurian” candidate, those politicians who who are deepest in the pockets of foreign powers always seem to be Republicans, don’t they? And Romney certainly fits the bill.

Don’t take my word for it, just ask the good folks in Freeport IL (h/t to icebergslim) who Mittens cares about the most: the people of Freeport and their jobs or his buddies at Bain Capital’s profits from tearing down and outsourcing Freeport’s major employer, lock, stock and barrel to — China? They know who is the real Manchurian Candidate in this election and it ain’t President Obama.

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Analysts were totally stunned as Chief Justice Roberts began reading the majority opinion and spoke of the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate and the Commerce Law. CNN put up a news headline that Obamacare was struck down by the Court. Then Roberts came forward with the tax line in support of upholding ACA. The Conservatives in the room dropped their jaws to the floor in utter disbelief. A great day for the individual citizen and why can’t the US compete with the major European nations who have had a National Health coverage for ages.

I wonder how the legal interpretation on the tax issue can be decided by a 5-4 vote. Embarrasing really on the differing opinions. Somewhere I could understand that Chief Justice Roberts took responsibility to qualify ACA as being constitutional in view of the welfare of US citizens. I personally consider affordable health care nothing less than a human right. How dare do Republicans speak of pro-life when thousands die every year due to a lack of medical care.

Obama: A victory for all Americans (VIDEO)

The Atlantic: ‘Looks Like a Tax’: A Simple Guide to Today’s Historic Supreme Court Ruling

We’ve given you today’s blockbuster decision in one paragraph and 193 pages. Here’s your Goldilocks analysis — a straightforward explanation of why the law survived.  

Halfway down the second page of the Supreme Court’s decision on National Federation of Independent Business et al v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services — a.k.a.: the case to decide the fate of health care reform — there is a very important sentence:

“CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS concluded in Part III-A that the individual mandate is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause.”

With that, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court dashed to pieces the administration’s main argument for the individual mandate — that it was protected under the Constitution’s power to regulate business. But the ruling didn’t end there. Halfway down the third page of the decision, there is an even more important sentence:

“CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS concluded that the individual mandate must be construed as imposing a tax on those who do not have health insurance.”

And so, this is the way health care reform survives. Not as a mandate. But as a tax.

*

In the end, four justices voted to strike down the entire health care law. Four justices deemed it appropriate under the commerce clause. And, in the middle, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded that the entire health care law could live because the mandate in question can be legally justified under Congress’s power to tax.

Live blog of opinions

• An embarrassing squeeze play: Liberal attempts to sway Chief Justice Roberts on Obamacare will likely fail
• Business Insider: Surprise! Chief Justice Roberts’ Vote Saved Obama’s Healthcare Plan
• What Does Mitt Romney Think About Chief Justice John Roberts?
• Conservative Republicans Turn On Former Hero, Chief Justice John Roberts

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

Here’s some more good news for Mitt Romney on health care:

Democracy for America commissioned a poll late last week asking 900 registered voters from across the country their views on healthcare and the Republican voucher program. The poll responses are listed below [the margin of error is +- 3.5%.]

Do you support or oppose turning Medicare into a voucher program?

Support 15%
Oppose 57%
Not sure 28%

Do you support or oppose Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare for seniors?

Support 26%
Oppose 33%
Not sure 41%

Do you support or oppose privatizing Medicare?

Support 25%
Oppose 53%
Not sure 22%

If Mitt Romney endorsed a plan that turned Medicare into a voucher program, would you be more or less likely to vote for him, or would it not make a difference?

More likely 13%
Less likely 42%
No difference 42%
Not sure 2%

The only one winning more than Charlie Sheen is Mitt Romney.

I think Robert Stacy McCain must be the biggest loser in America. What a drama queen. I wonder if he realizes that he’s ruining his own life and probably his marriage. I sure hope his pity party raises him a lotta PayPal dough. He’s so far down the rabbit hole that he’ll need the money to buy a ticket back to reality. Imagine abandoning your home because you are afraid of a voting rights activist. Unbelievable.

I tuned in to Fox News for the first time in months to see how they were reacting to the health care ruling, but they decided to do a lengthy interview with Rupert Murdoch instead. Pretty clever. The Corner is filled with their spin. “The ruling turns ObamaCare into the biggest middle class tax cut in history.” “We won on the Commerce Clause!” “Let’s repeal the whole thing.” “Now, the only way to fix this is to vote for Romney.”

Here are the opinions (pdf).

I’m relieved, and I don’t even like the fucking mandate.

The individual mandate survives as a tax. Will update.

Maybe while we are all waiting, someone can tell me who killed Mary Pinchot Meyer. I need to know so I can write the best screenplay ever.

I feel like a giant asteroid is going to hit our country tomorrow and it’s making it a little hard to write about anything else. Anyone feeling similarly? I actually have a piece I need to do, but I keep putting it off. It’s not writer’s block exactly. It’s more like a giant shadow of doom.

If you are pins and needles waiting to see how the Supreme Court ruled on the Affordable Care Act, Sean Trende’s piece is pretty well-reasoned. It’s tough to come out with a prediction that may make the author look like an idiot less than 24 hours later, so it’s best to hedge a bit. Trende puts the likelihood that the bill will be untouched at about 15%-20% and he raises the possibility that the whole law will be struck down because the Justices won’t want to do the hard work of choosing what stays and what goes. His most interesting observation, though, is encouraging. In the past, when Antonin Scalia has issued especially grumpy opinions, it has indicated that other cases were not going his way. Since Scalia threw a hissy-fit over the Arizona immigration case, perhaps he’s not happy with the coming decision on health care.

Trende also does a nice job of explaining why he believes the heath care case will be written by Chief Justice Roberts, and I agree with his reasoning. However, I don’t agree with his conclusion that that is necessarily bad news for the bill. Trende says, “…because we can now deduce with a reasonably high degree of certainty that John Roberts is writing the lead health care opinion…the law is in even deeper trouble that (sic) most observers imagined.”

I don’t think that follows. If Roberts is in the majority, that means that Kennedy is in the majority, too. That’s true regardless of whether they are ruling for or against the bill. It could be a 6-3 decision to uphold or a 5-4 decision to strike all or part of the Act. (I’m assuming here that Roberts would not be the fifth vote to uphold, but might be the sixth).

Let me walk you through this. If the Chief Justice is in the majority, he assigns the case. He can pick himself or anyone else in the majority. But if the Chief Justice is in the minority, the most senior member of the majority assigns the case. In any plausible 5-4 decision, Kennedy would be the most senior member of the majority and would probably assign the case to himself. Knowing this, if Roberts is inclined to rule against the government, he would have good reason to offer the opinion to Kennedy. If Kennedy is not losing the privilege of writing this hallmark decision, he might be more inclined to rule with the conservatives.

If we knew that Kennedy wrote the decision, it would tell us nothing. He’s as likely to rule one way as the other. But the fact that he didn’t write it strikes me as a slight indication that Roberts felt no need to entice Kennedy or show him the courtesy of retaining the ability to write the opinion. I’m reading tea leaves here, but I take Roberts’ authorship as a good sign.

Now, Trende argues that Kennedy showed some sympathy at oral arguments for the government’s case, while Roberts showed none at all. I think that is just factually inaccurate. To take just one example, he challenged Paul Clement on his characterization of the mandate as something the government was forcing you to buy rather than a regulation about how you pay for something you’ll inevitably need.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, Mr. Clement,
the key to the government’s argument to the contrary is
that everybody is in this market. It’s all right to regulate Wickard — again, in Wickard against Filburn, because that’s a particular market in which the farmer had been participating.

Everybody is in this market, so that makes it very different than the market for cars or the other hypotheticals that you came up with, and all they’re regulating is how you pay for it.

At another point, Roberts interrupted to ask Clement to go back and answer a question previously posed by Justice Sotomayor. But Sotomayor hadn’t asked a question; she had made a statement of fact:

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Yes, but that’s exactly
what Justice Marshall said in Gibbons. He said that it is the power to regulate, the power like all others vested in Congress is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than those prescribed in the Constitution. But there is no conscription in the, set forth in the Constitution with respect to regulating commerce.

Obviously, Roberts wanted Clement to address Sotomayor’s point, which indicates to me that he thought she had a point.

I don’t know how the Court will rule, but the only thing we know from Roberts’ likely authorship is that he is likely in the majority. That means a 5-4 decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act is unlikely, but it says nothing about a 6-3 decision to uphold it. And, again, I think it is slightly more likely that Kennedy would be the author than Roberts of a 5-4 decision against the Act.

I posted this on Facebook on June 22, but stuff seems to get lost on FB pretty easily. Thought someone out there might enjoy this…
“> Hello, I am Eliza.
* Hi, Eliza. Do you mind if I call you Liza for short?
> We were discussing you, not me.
* I didn’t think we had officially started our discussion just yet. I was just asking how you prefer to be addressed.
> Oh… prefer to be addressed?
* Yes. You may call me Renee. Should I call you Eliza, or Liza, or just “Yo computer simulated babe!”?
> We were discussing you, not me.
* I see that you were first created in the 1960s–so the “broken record” expression should not be lost on you…
> Oh… was first created in the 1960s–so the” broken record” expression should not be lost on me?”