Thursday Reads
Posted: March 29, 2012 Filed under: Crime, Health care reform, legislation, racism, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Arlen Specter, autopsy, Capt. Clayton Frederick Osbon, Chris Serino, Colorado wildfire, cuba, Fidel Castro, George Zimmerman, LA Dodgers, Magic Johnson, Obamacare, Pope Benedict, racial profiling, racial stereotyping, Sanford FL, SCOTUS, Sonia Sotomayor, Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin 50 Comments
Good Morning!!
Most of the commentators seem to think it doesn’t look good for the health care bill. At SCOTUS Blog, there’s an index of yesterday’s coverage.
The New York Times editorial addresses the “test” the Supreme Court faces in their decision on this case.
In ruling on the constitutionality of requiring most Americans to obtain health insurance, the Supreme Court faces a central test: whether it will recognize limits on its own authority to overturn well-founded acts of Congress.
The skepticism in the questions from the conservative justices suggests that they have adopted the language and approach of the insurance mandate’s challengers. But the arguments against the mandate, the core of the health care reform law, willfully reject both the reality of the national health care market and established constitutional principles that have been upheld for generations.
The Obama administration persuasively argues that the mandate is central to solving the crisis in America’s health care system, which leaves 50 million people uninsured and accounts for 17.6 percent of the national economy. The challengers contend that the law is an unlimited — and, therefore, unconstitutional — use of federal authority to force individuals to buy insurance, or pay a penalty.
That view wrongly frames the mechanism created by this law. The insurance mandate is nothing like requiring people to buy broccoli — a comparison Justice Antonin Scalia suggested in his exasperated questioning of Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. Congress has no interest in requiring broccoli purchases because the failure to buy broccoli does not push that cost onto others in the system.
It’s really frightening to think of the possible implications of the justices overturning this law. Will the right wingers challenge Medicare and Social Security next? Dahlia Lithwick says the right wingers on the Court seem to want to return the country to “freedom” circa 1804.
The fight over Obamacare is about freedom. That’s what we’ve been told since these lawsuits were filed two years ago and that’s what we heard both inside and outside the Supreme Court this morning. That’s what Michele Bachmann* and Rick Santorum have been saying for months. Even people who support President Obama’s signature legislative achievement would agree that this debate is all about freedom—the freedom to never be one medical emergency away from economic ruin. What we have been waiting to hear is how members of the Supreme Court—especially the conservative majority—define that freedom. This morning as the justices pondered whether the individual mandate—that part of the Affordable Care Act that requires most Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty—is constitutional, we got a window into the freedom some of the justices long for. And it is a dark, dark place.
But the “conservative” justices, who are covered by government subsidized health insurance appear to think freedom means the right to let people die if they can’t pay for health care.
[Sonia] Sotomayor…pondering whether hospitals could simply turn away the uninsured, finally asks: “What percentage of the American people who took their son or daughter to an emergency room and that child was turned away because the parent didn’t have insurance—do you think there’s a large percentage of the American population who would stand for the death of that child if they had an allergic reaction and a simple shot would have saved the child?”
But we seem to want to be free from that obligation as well. This morning in America’s highest court, freedom seems to be less about the absence of constraint than about the absence of shared responsibility, community, or real concern for those who don’t want anything so much as healthy children, or to be cared for when they are old. Until today, I couldn’t really understand why this case was framed as a discussion of “liberty.” This case isn’t so much about freedom from government-mandated broccoli or gyms. It’s about freedom from our obligations to one another, freedom from the modern world in which we live. It’s about the freedom to ignore the injured, walk away from those in peril, to never pick up the phone or eat food that’s been inspected. It’s about the freedom to be left alone. And now we know the court is worried about freedom: the freedom to live like it’s 1804.
The quotes from Scalia and Kennedy in Lithwick’s piece are unbelievable. Please go read the rest at the link.
There were some bombshells in the Trayvon Martin case last night. ABC news obtained video of George Zimmerman arriving at the police station after he shot Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman had no visual signs of injury, no bandages, no sign of grass stains on the back of his jacket, no sign of a broken nose, no blood on his nose or the back of his head.
Last night on MSNBC’s The Last Word, Lawrence O’Donnell spoke to the funeral director who prepared Martin’s body for burial. The funeral director saw no sign of damage to Martin’s knuckles or any other part of his body that would indicate he had been in a fight. The only damage this man observed was a gunshot wound to Martin’s chest.
O’Donnell also had as a guest Cheryl Brown, the mother of a 13-year-old boy who witnessed the shooting. He couldn’t see much, because it was getting dark, but the boy told the 911 dispatcher that he saw a man lying on the ground and another man standing over him. One of the men was crying out for help, and then there was a gunshot and the crying stopped.
Another issue that arose last night on both MSNBC’s The Ed Show was that the police report on the incident listed Trayvon Martin’s full name and address; yet police listed him as a John Doe for three days. When Sanford police finally informed Trayvon’s father that his son was dead, the man who came to the house was Chris Serino, the investigator whom we recently learned wanted to charge George Zimmerman with manslaughter on February 26, the night of the shooting. Serino told Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s father, that he (Serino) didn’t believe Zimmerman’s story.
I don’t have any links, as I write this late on Wednesday night. I will try to add them in the morning when news articles become available.
The autopsy on Trayvon Martin’s body will obviously be key in determining what happened that night, but the autopsy is currently under seal.
The autopsy on Trayvon Martin was performed by a medical examiner who works for the Volusia County government, and therefore Byron has been in the loop regarding the autopsy, which has not yet been released as the investigation into the killing is ongoing.
“In Florida when a death is being actively investigated by any agency … the autopsy information is shielded under the Florida public records law until the investigation becomes un-active, or inactive,” Byron told the IBTimes via phone Wednesday morning. “So in this case I think we can all agree this is an active death investigation, so what I need to do is refer all calls to the State Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville.”
The LA Times reported yesterday that: Black residents in Sanford, FL say they’re often harassed by police. Here’s one example from the article:
To many black residents of Sanford, the escalating national anger over how local police have handled the [Trayvon Martin] case reflects years of tension and frustration over their treatment by authorities.
Murray Jess, for one, can’t shake the memory of an evening two years ago, as he drove through Sanford at dusk, heading home after attending an art show with his fiance and his 14-year-old nephew.
A police cruiser began following Jess’ silver-gray 1996 Mercedes. Two unmarked police cars blocked the road in front of him, forcing Jess into a Pizza Hut parking lot. An officer got out of a van and pointed a video camera at the bewildered Jess as another officer, his hand on his gun, approached the car.
Jess asked the officer why he had been stopped. “He said, ‘We’ve had a lot of reports of these kinds of cars being stolen lately,’ ” said Jess, a black Sanford resident and business owner whose voice still shakes with rage.
I have several other news links for you on a variety of subjects that I’ll give you in what Minkoff Minx and Wonk the Vote call a “link dump.”
On Tuesday, Minx reported that a group led by Magic Johnson has purchased the LA Dodgers. The team has been in limbo for the past couple of years after the former owner, Frank McCourt went through an expensive divorce that drained his funds. Actually, McCourt really never had enough money to be the owner of an MLB team. The LA Times reports on Dodger fans’ reactions.
The Pope visited Cuba and met with Fidel Castro.
Pope Benedict called for an end to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and met with revolutionary icon Fidel Castro on Wednesday as he ended a trip in which he urged the communist island to change.
He also spoke at a public Mass in Havana’s sprawling Revolution Square where the Vatican said 300,000 people gathered to hear the 84-year-old pontiff.
In a trip laced with calls for change in Cuba, his last message was aimed at the United States, its longtime ideological foe, which for 50 years has imposed a trade embargo trying to topple the Caribbean island’s communist government.
Speaking in a departure ceremony at a rainy Havana airport, Benedict said Cuba could build “a society of broad vision, renewed and reconciled,” but it was more difficult “when restrictive economic measures, imposed from outside the country, unfairly burden its people.”
A terrible wildfire has been burning in Colorado. Authorities believe the fire was started by a “controlled burn.”
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper suspended prescribed burns used to mitigate fire danger on Wednesday after a controlled blaze apparently ignited a wildfire west of Denver that killed an elderly couple and destroyed some two dozen homes.
“Through this suspension, we intend to make sure that we have the procedures and protocols in place so that prescribed fire conditions and management requirements are understood and strictly followed,” Hickenlooper said in a statement.
Although the origins of the so-called Lower North Fork Fire are officially under investigation, the Colorado State Forest Service has said that a controlled burn it conducted was the likely source of the fire.
A Jet Blue pilot who apparently had a psychotic break during a flight has been charged with a crime.
U.S. authorities filed criminal charges on Wednesday against a JetBlue Airways pilot who yelled incoherently about religion and the 2001 hijack attacks and pounded on a locked cockpit door before passengers subdued him in a midair uproar.
Flight 191 was diverted to Amarillo, Texas, on Tuesday, following what authorities described as erratic behavior by Capt. Clayton Frederick Osbon, who allegedly ran through the cabin before passengers tackled him in the galley….
The Justice Department filed a complaint charging Osbon with interfering with the crew. It is unusual for a commercial airline pilot to be charged in this way, and a U.S. official said he could not recall a similar case in recent years.
Osbon, 49, remains in a guarded facility at a hospital in Amarillo, and U.S. Attorney Sarah Saldana said he faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The man sounds mentally ill to me. I’ll be interested to learn more about what happened.
If you’re interested in some juicy gossip from Arlen Specter’s new book, you can find it at The Washington Post and Huffpo. There appears to be quite a bit in the book about naked Senators–including Ted Kennedy. I think I’m going to pass on reading this book.
Sooooo… what are you reading and blogging about today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
So Arlen Specter writes a tell all gossip book, but the stuff I really would like to hear is the truth about JFK.
Great post BTW…
Ukraine woman who was gang raped and set on fire, dies | World news | The Guardian
Geez, this woman suffered horrible torture…I am glad the suspects were re-arrested.
This so sad and sadder the fact that people had to protest due to the lack of prosecution. I recall a woman that was set on fire here in the states and the lack of outrage was very painful. I am glad people across the world are waking up to the injustices and speaking up when the system is corrupt.
RIP
The Chief of Psychiatry of NY Presbyterian Hosp, Dr. Jeffrey Liberman, was on CBS This Morning. He was saying that the Jet Blue pilot’s behavior can fall into one of three categories; a psychotic break, a neurological event, or a reaction to something ingested. Dr. Liberman explained it all better than I can, so I’ll try to link to the clip.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403650n
My friends and I have been of the thought that it could be something ingested and this is the second incident with flight crew in a short period of time. What do you think BB?
I wondered if the government agencies are considering this as a possibility.
I think it’s probably from sleep deprivation. Airline industries really run crazy schedules these days.
So, they state he was selling a diet supplement and had himself been on this supplement? Odd…
Well, if the supplement contains a stimulant, then it would go to what dak said above about sleep deprivation.
Sanford police threaten to arrest reporters who attempt to contact city employees during non working hours.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/29/2720590/sanford-police-threaten-to-arrest.html
Oh, he must be paying attention to what the NYPD does to Occupy Wall Street and to the reporters trying to cover the events…the Police State mentality that got us here is lurking itself up with the power of draconian laws.
When the press is silenced, Democracy and Freedom die.
Earl Scruggs died yesterday. He was 88.
http://news.yahoo.com/bluegrass-pioneer-earl-scruggs-dies-age-88-110343785.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwColEM6m_c&feature=related
You can’t just read the hypocrisy involved with the healthcare reforms without getting sick to your stomach.
Only a few short years ago the GOP was in favor, today not so much. Watching their You Tube videos calling out for the same measures then while watching the same morons decry it now is amazing to behold.
The truth lies in two undeniable facts: that whatever Obama supports must be a GOP guarantee of wholesale defeat alongside the proposition that people actually do not care about anyone else. The GOP debates proved that by their applause when Ron Paul shrugged off the suggestion that if you cannot afford to pay for your care the fault lies strictly with you.
They are all about forcing a woman to bear an unwanted child but tough toenails if that child is born with a physical condition that will be beset with mountains of debt for its care over the long run. Ask any parent faced with an autistic child as one example. Living under the crush of medical bills associated with this care is mind boggling.
The “I’ve got mine, to hell with the rest” attitude serves only as long as you have a job that offers benefits. After that, you are basically on your own.
I am unable to own a home or a car without having insurance coverage. Why is it too much to suggest that healthcare should be treated in the same way? Not everybody has to own a car or a home but everybody at one time or another is going to seek medical treatment somewhere down the line.
The costs today are prohibitive on their own and someone is going to be charged with paying the bill and right now it is coming from the pockets of the insured in the form of higher premiums and much higher deductables.
It is fascinating listening to the arguments that our “freedoms” are being assaulted for refusing to take part in an option that we are all in this together.
The right wingers are mostly Ayn Rand true believers. To them, selfishness is the highest good.
The Horrors of an Ayn Rand World: Why We Must Fight for America’s Soul
http://www.alternet.org/news/154700/the_horrors_of_an_ayn_rand_world%3A_why_we_must_fight_for_america%27s_soul
From the article by Gary Weiss:
Remember last year or so when a guy’s house burned to the ground as firefighters stood by because he owed something like a $75.00 fee to the township that was unpaid?
Instead of putting out the fire then going after him later on, the firefighters were prevented from acting by this type of unreasonable behavior. Is this where we are heading?
Fortunately the burning house was remote enough that no other structures were threatened. But what if it were not? Is it reasonable to suggest that because the guy next door failed to pay a fee my home would also be endangered as a result? What sense does any of this make?
We seem to be drifting into a mindset that lacks even a hint of commonsense. What was even more amazing to read were comments that the municipality “had every right” to impose a denial of services because the guy was “not playing by the rules”.
I have no idea why the man did not pay the fee. It may have been deliberate or it may have been his idea of “freedom” but be that as it may, it puts the idea of public safety to the test when a game of ping pong is played out for the sake of argument.
What really pisses me off is that “great intellect” Scalia doesn’t seem to understand the insurance market is different from the market for vegetables.
It’s quite possible the entire argument phase was just political posturing by these asshats. No one knows how they will actually decide the case yet. It’s still pathetic.
Ralph, here’s Pierce this morning on the topic:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/scalia-retires-7675276
Damn he’s always good!. Thanks.
Charlie Pierce reacts to the Dahlia Lithwick piece that I quoted in my post.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/believe-in-america-7685927
That is one hell of a piece BB, thank you for linking to it.
Your observation made me laugh, as I shook my head when I read his statement. Yup, have yet to get medical care at the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. 😆
I know this is a bit of a leap, but it reminded me of Fox and Friends talking about women getting breast exams and pap smears at CVS…
Pat said: We seem to be drifting into a mindset that lacks even a hint of commonsense or simply a sense of humanity – it makes me wonder how anyone can be so callous.
exactly…
Simple huh? But not for the “great intellects” on the SC, oh no.
That’s not true, Minx. You are unable to get a *mortgage* for a home without having insurance, but that requirement isn’t imposed by the government, but rather by your lender. Once your loan is paid off, you can drop insurance. You are also free to own an automobile without having insurance – you just aren’t allowed to operate it on public roads. As long as it’s only operated on private property there’s no requirement for insurance (or registration, either). Furthermore, there’s no legal requirement that you own either a house or an automobile.
For some, the question is whether the Federal government can extend its powers at will by citing the commerce clause or simple public interest.
What if the Federal government required every individual to purchase a firearm, overriding any local gun control ordinances? Would that be acceptable? If not, why not? What if fines were imposed on those who refused? What if this requirement were justified by proclaiming those who didn’t want to do business with gun manufacturers as “freeloaders” who depended on others to secure their personal safety and/or property?
What you *can’t* do is refuse to pay taxes (even if those taxes are used to pay for programs with which you disagree). Congress’s authority to levy taxes is explicitly enumerated in the Constitution – which is why single-payer was and is the right (and constitutional) way to provide universal healthcare.
you are required to buy both medicare and social security … I think the government is arguing this is a tax of sorts like that… the states’ case is pretty much what they argued when they said social security was unconstitutional.
As it was explained to me – the mandate for car insurance is governed by individual States – a sweeping law mandating anyone to buy something by the US government is too broad – as you point out we can decide not to buy a car and therefore opt out of the need for car insurance or move to another State that doesn’t mandate it.
The question, I guess, is simply “is it constitutional to mandate everyone buy ANYTHING?” – probably not but they could take the mandate out of the darn legislature and then leave the rest alone. – No?
we have to buy medicare and social security. we have to subject ourselves to military draft and at one time we even had to bring our own bullets and guns (orders of George Washington). There’s plenty of examples of places where the federal government makes us pay for things and consume things … they are called taxes.
That’s the issue of severability and the conservatives are implying it wasn’t in the law.
None of these is directly comparable, because each involves Congress’s explicitly enumerated powers to tax and to levy armed forces.
There is no enumerated power to require a private individual unconditionally to do business with a *private* company (particularly if interstate commerce isn’t involved), and any claim of such power probably infringes your right of free association.
This is why single-payer would almost certainly be constitutional, while Romneycare/Obamacare (or as I like to put it “The Insurance Company Bailout Bill”) might very well not be.
Many of the Federal Government’s programs are privatized anyway. What difference does it make if you have to go through a pass through or not? I agree single payer is a better way to go or just open medicare or the federal plan to any one. Wouldn’t a federal exchange be a quasi agent?
Yes, but isn’t that really an issue of the Government being able to contract for services to aid it in the exercise of its authorized functions? I don’t have any issues with the Government bidding contracts for services (I’d have been unemployed for much of my career if that were not possible). I wouldn’t, for example, have any issues with a Government healthcare system issuing a competitive RFP to insurance companies for claims administration services.
One of the biggest problems with the US healthcare system is the incredible drain on resources imposed by private insurance and the way it makes individuals dependent on their employers’ largesse for access to healthcare. To my mind, the ACA just institutionalizes this problem. It’s just a big rent-extraction scheme for Wellpoint, Cigna, and UH.
Yes, the discussions are pretty sickening. I wish the ACA was a better bill rather than a monster give away to insurance companies and pharmaceuticals with a few good items included. In any case, it’s becoming abundantly clear that the Republican alternative is truly: die quickly.
The Ayn Rand ideology demands economic ‘liberty’ with no justice, no heart. It’s as totalitarian as the system Rand escaped from. Why a book of fiction is defended with such rigor is beyond me. But the case in Tennessee [mentioned down thread] is indeed where this leads. Beck did a whole standup, defending the Fire Chief for telling his men to stand down and libertarians across the net applauded the decision. This is what ‘must’ happen, they said, until people understand you can’t get something for nothing. Meanwhile, a neighbor offered to pay that premium in cash on the spot. Made no difference. The Fire Chief refused. I recall reading that a number of the men on that call were absolutely appalled.
But yes, that’s the attitude. That’s the new definition of ‘liberty.’
I posted this on Minx’s thread last night, but I’m going to do it again here. Pioneering feminist poet Adrienne Rich has died at 82.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/entertainment-us-rich-obit-idUSBRE82S04720120329
I do not know who she is, I read the post yesterday and was planning to look more info up today.
What’s Your Favorite Adrienne Rich Poem?
Special prosecutor in Trayvon Martin case says she may not need a grand jury in order to make a decision on prosecuting George Zimmerman.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-28/news/os-trayvon-martin-prosecutor-corey-20120328_1_grand-jury-special-prosecutor-civil-rights-leaders
Okay, so now we have a “victim” pleading “self defense” because he was “wounded” in an altercation that has a video showing him being led into the police station that does not show any signs of a recent struggle by way of his clothing, or of him having any “severe damages” to his face or head. The two places on is body that supposedly were incurred by Trayvon Martin “assaulting” him which led to his shooting him in “self defense”. Really?
Where is the blood? Even if they allowed him to “clean up” it does not explain why there is no remnants of blood – especially from a bloody nose that believe me, gushes forth – on his clothing that looks untouched and undisturbed from the video.
But the lead detective is claiming he had “suspicions”. However, the lead detective apparently did not think it necessary to locate the parents, which should have been evident on the cellphone they confiscated, and weren’t notified immediately. This is something I find hard to understand right there.
As this case seems to be moving “up the line of command” in who was responsible for what, it is clear that race itself played a major role in allowing this law and its unfolding to go unchallenged.
The major problem is that this is playing out not in a court of law but in the court of public opinion since Florida law enforcement failed to act properly in the first place. What has trickled out since is confusing since the appearance of a “cover up” seems to be majorly in play.
Who said what to whom, who decided what, who is telling the truth or just looking to CYA is disturbing since the event happened on February 26th and the statements from both sides are murky.
What is a fact is that a young kid went out for a bag of candy and never came home. It also appears that his assailant acted on his own by taking the law into his own hands and is now looking to establish a reason for doing so that is full of holes. It also appears that law enforcement is attempting to “pass the buck” for its failure to act as those who passed the dumb law in the first place are ginning up reasons for its passage in the first place.
Meanwhile a tortured family is subjected to pleading with authorities to just “do the right thing” while this circus plays out knowing justice may never be achieved.
That video may be “the smoking gun” itself but the contortion of fact finding has just begun when so many have had a hand in the cover up.
I hope so. I wonder if he is still in the US.
I find it strange that the father would want to give an interview defending his son without showing his face. If I was standing up to support my son, I would do it out in the open, not hidden like a coward. Maybe I am just too pissed off at all this…injustice, racism, and outright lies.
It all goes back to “friends in high places”. Apparently the a high up judge felt the need to overturn any further investigation by pronouncing Zimmerman free from any fault just by making a phone call. Hello, Haley Barbour!
The underpinnings of politics, race, nefarious legislation, a lazy press ,a possibly corrupt law enforcment agency, and a well connected family with a ticking time bomb in its midst led to a major cover up of a kid who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Rather then remain in his vehicle as instructed, what came after set the groundwork for this miscarriage of justice so far. Even if Trayvon was acting suspiciously – even at that – the call to 911 by Zimmerman should have been enough to be left to law enforcement to handle without him emerging from the vehicle to pursue on foot when told otherwise. And even had Trayvon challenged Zimmerman, he was still unarmed and police were on the way.
With no other evidence of any crime actually taking place, “suspicion” alone was all Zimmerman seemed to need to act on his own. His actions bore the need for further investigation rather than a dismissal by a jurist who made this decision on his own to overrule what had been presented as possible facts.
Just another loss of faith in the institutions that are supposed to protect us. But as long as one has “friends in high places” you can get away with just about anything.
a wonderful piece BB, thank you. 🙂
Great morning updates, great thread. Thanks to all!
I forget just how many senators want a copy of my pap smear results. What the hell I wouldn’t want to leave out the surpreme justices. I’m just proud, thrilled and happy to be sending it in, I just hope they can read it.
🙂 – you go girl!
We ought to plan a mass mailing of pap smears to the new medical consultants holding office in congress……Instead million women march, million smears.