Last Call For The Romneybot Exits Program, Or, Halt And Catch Liar

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney is retiring after the end of his term, and it's BOTH SIDES, you guys.

 

Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012 and the only member of his party to twice vote to convict former president Donald Trump in politically charged impeachment trials, announced Wednesday that he will not seek a second term in the Senate representing Utah, saying in an interview that it is time for a new generation to “step up” and “shape the world they’re going to live in.”
\
Romney, 76, said his decision not to run again was heavily influenced by his belief that a second term, which would take him into his 80s, probably would be less productive and less satisfying than the current term has been. He blamed that both on the disarray he sees among House Republicans and on his own lack of confidence in the leadership of President Biden and Trump.

“It’s very difficult for the House to operate, from what I can tell,” he said in a lengthy telephone interview previewing his formal announcement, “and two, and perhaps more importantly, we’re probably going to have either Trump or Biden as our next president. And Biden is unable to lead on important matters and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters.”

Romney, elected to the Senate in 2018 with 63 percent of the vote, said he will serve out the duration of his term, which ends in January 2025. His decision not to seek reelection next year is likely to mark the end of a political career that has been notable, especially in the Trump era, for independence and a willingness to stand up against the base of his party that has shifted dramatically in Trump’s direction in the decade since Romney was its standard-bearer.

From the time Trump first became a candidate until today, Romney has been among his most outspoken critics, and nothing about his departure is expected to change that. In the weeks before Trump’s 2017 inauguration, Romney publicly acquiesced, expressing hope for the president-elect’s leadership while he was under consideration to be secretary of state. But his turnabout was short-lived.

Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in the 2020 impeachment trial, which involved Trump’s efforts to persuade Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential campaign and withholding aid to that country. Romney was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict in the second trial, which came weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Both votes, but especially the first, cost Romney politically, at home in Utah and more broadly within a party that Trump has come to dominate. He acknowledged the damage he had sustained, but said, “If there were no cost to doing what’s right, there’d be no such thing as courage. … I think it’s fair to say that the support I get in Utah is because people respect someone who does what they believe is right, even if they disagree with me.”

Republicans have speculated that because of his opposition to Trump, Romney could face a difficult battle to win a second term if he decided to run again. But the senator said fear of losing had nothing to do with his decision. In fact, he said, he was confident that, had he decided to run again, he would prevail. He pointed to a recent poll in Utah that showed his approval rebounding to 56 percent, a sharp rise from the 40 percent recorded in May and numbers showing him well ahead of potential rivals.

The highest-achieving Mormon politician of his time, Romney twice sought the presidency and served as governor of Massachusetts before moving to Utah and being elected to the Senate. His father, George, was a governor of Michigan, ran unsuccessfully for president in 1968 and served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Richard M. Nixon.

 

And as just about every other Republican in my lifetime has done, is doing, and will do in the future, Romney's choice was do nothing to fix the problems their party created over that lifetime, and blame the Democrats for it while holding the blowtorch and kicking over the 55-gallon drum of flammable accelerant.

 

Romney had 20 years in government to do better, and at every opportunity he chose not to, and now he's choosing to bail out of the plane he's helped to crash again and again, failing his father's legacy whenever he could.

Most of all, wherever Romney did the right thing, like MassCare when he was Governor there two decades ago, he just disavowed it later.

What a failure of a career. Even when he won, he lost.

Obamacare In The ER Again

While we were all watching and waiting concerning Trump's indictment and Texas Federal Judge Matt Kacsmaryk ending the FDA approval of abortion medication, another Texas Federal Judge just shot Obamacare in the chest and left potentially tens of millions of Americans without preventative healthcare.

 

A federal judge in Texas said Thursday that some Affordable Care Act mandates cannot be enforced nationwide, including those that require insurers to cover a wide array of preventive care services at no cost to the patient, including some cancer, heart and STD screenings, and smoking cessation programs.

In the new ruling, US District Judge Reed O’Connor said the recommendations that have been issued by the US Preventive Services Task Force, which has been tasked with determining some of the preventive care treatments that Obamacare requires to be covered.

O’Connor’s ruling comes after the judge had already said that the Task Force’s recommendations violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The judge also deemed unlawful the ACA requirement that insurers and employers offer plans that cover HIV-prevention measures such as PrEP for free.

Other preventive care mandates under the ACA remain in effect.

It is likely the case will be appealed, and the Justice Department has the option to ask that O’Connor’s ruling be put on pause while the appeal is litigated.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment, nor did the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The decision, in a case brought by employers and individuals in Texas, represents the latest legal attack on the landmark 2010 health care law. It is unclear what immediate practical effect O’Connor’s new ruling will have for those with job-based and Affordable Care Act policies because insurance companies will likely continue no-cost coverage for the remainder of the contracts even though the Obamacare requirements in question have been blocked.

While the case does not pose the existential threat to the Affordable Care Act that previous legal challenges posed, legal experts say that O’Connor’s ruling nonetheless puts in jeopardy the access some Americans will have to a whole host of preventive treatments.

“We lose a huge chunk of preventive services because health plans can now impose costs,” said Andrew Twinamatsiko, associate director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. “People who are sensitive to cost will go without, mostly poor people and marginalized communities.”

 

So unless this gets resolved soon, next year your health care plan won't include preventative screenings, because health insurers won't pay for them anymore. It means screening for cancer, mammograms, pre-natal care, even checkups may become too expensive for millions of us.

 

This is a potential disaster. I'm hoping the Biden administration will move quickly to appeal, but the question of even basic health care is now as uncertain as it was 15 years ago, and it's twice as expensive now as it was then.

 

Republicans just love misery.

 

 

 

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

With all the screaming about Trump stealing classified documents and hiding them in his pool closet, it's easy to forget that on Friday, Democrats passed the most impactful piece of climate change legislation in US history.

 

The House of Representatives voted Friday to pass Democrats' $750 billion health care, energy and climate bill, in a significant victory for President Joe Biden and his party. 

The final vote was 220-207, along party lines. Four Republicans did not vote.
Now that the Democratic-controlled House has approved the bill, it will next go to Biden to be signed into law. 

Final passage of the bill marks a milestone for Democrats and gives the party a chance to achieve long-sought policy objectives ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. It comes at a critical time as Democrats are fighting to retain control of narrow majorities in Congress. 

The sweeping bill -- named the Inflation Reduction Act -- would represent the largest climate investment in US history and make major changes to health policy by giving Medicare the power for the first time to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs and extending expiring health care subsidies for three years. The legislation would reduce the deficit, be paid for through new taxes -- including a 15% minimum tax on large corporations and a 1% tax on stock buybacks -- and boost the Internal Revenue Service's ability to collect. 

It would raise over $700 billion in government revenue over 10 years and spend over $430 billion to reduce carbon emissions and extend subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and use the rest of the new revenue to reduce the deficit.

 

Of course it has several other parts to it, but the climate change component is the largest.

 

The deal would be the biggest climate investment in US history. It would slash US greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's office said.
The new agreement spans everything from electric vehicle tax credits to clean energy manufacturing to investments in environmental justice communities. 

Extending tax credits for electric vehicles made it in, after previous opposition from Manchin. The tax credits would continue at their current levels, up to $4,000 for a used electric vehicle and $7,500 for a new one. However, the income threshold for eligibility would be lowered -- a key demand of Manchin's. 

The bill also contains 10-year consumer tax credits to bring down the cost of heat pumps, rooftop solar, electric HVAC and water heaters. It includes $60 billion of funding for environmental justice communities and for the reduction of legacy pollution. 

And it puts $60 billion towards domestic clean energy manufacturing and $30 billion for a production credit tax credit for wind, solar and battery storage. 

The bill provides $4 billion in additional drought funding -- a key negotiation point for Sinema amid the multi-year drought in the Southwest. 

The tax credits will be technology neutral -- meaning they won't favor renewables over fossil fuels outfitted with carbon-reducing measures. However, they are designed to reward those who reduce their emissions the most, according to Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. 

The deal also includes major provisions like a methane program that would levy a fee on oil and gas producers that emit methane above a certain threshold. It also includes $27 billion for a so-called clean energy accelerator -- essentially a green bank that will leverage public and private funding to expand more green projects.

 

It's a good bill, folks.

HoliDaze: A Pair Of Legends Pass

Two very notable deaths this week, first, football broadcasting legend John Madden passed today at age 85.

John Madden, the NFL coach, broadcaster and namesake for the billion-dollar video game franchise, died unexpectedly Tuesday. He was 85 years old.

The legendary coach helmed the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978, winning a Super Bowl over the Minnesota Vikings in January 1977. But he became as known for what he did after leaving the game in just his early 40s, when he ascended to the broadcast booth and later lent his name to the most successful sports video game franchise of all time.

He is survived by his wife, Virginia, and sons Mike and Joe, as well as several grandchildren.

"On behalf of the entire NFL family, we extend our condolences to Virginia, Mike, Joe and their families," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. "We all know him as the Hall of Fame coach of the Oakland Raiders and broadcaster who worked for every network, but more than anything, he was a devoted husband, father and grandfather."

"Nobody loved football more than Coach. He was football. He was an incredible sounding board to me and so many others," Goodell continued. "There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today." 

 

Certainly I grew up with Madden's marquee game calling, particularly watching his Detroit Lions Thanksgiving games at my grandparents' house, and watching CBS's Super Bowl broadcasts as well as playing Madden NFL on consoles in the 90's and 00's.  It just wasn't the same without him once he retired.

And speaking of things never being the same since he retired, that brings us to our other extremely notable passing this evening, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

 

Harry Reid, who rose from abject poverty in rural Nevada to become one of the most influential state and national leaders, died on Tuesday, sources confirmed to The Nevada Independent. He was 82.

Additional details were not immediately available.

Reid was thought to be nearing the end of his life when he underwent surgery in 2018 for pancreatic cancer, which has one of the lowest survival rates. Last summer, however, Reid announced that he underwent an experimental surgery and was declared in “complete remission” and cancer-free.

Over more than three decades of service in Congress, Reid earned a reputation for fighting relentlessly to protect his home state and everyday Americans. As Senate Democratic leader for a dozen years, he played an instrumental role in passing the Affordable Care Act and shepherding through Congress pivotal economic recovery legislation in the wake of the Great Recession.

Reid also spent considerable time focusing on water, energy and public lands, issues at the forefront of a state that was undergoing rapid growth. In 2020, Reid said more than half of his congressional papers dealt, in some form, with the environment.

A savvy dealmaker and sometimes polarizing figure who made as many enemies as he did friends, Reid still earned the respect of colleagues in both parties — sometimes turning former enemies to friends. Soft-spoken with a sharp tongue, Reid compelled those around him to listen.

Reid took a no-holds-barred approach to politics, directly calling bankers to bail out the faltering CityCenter project on the Las Vegas Strip and falsely claiming Mitt Romney hadn’t paid his taxes in 10 years.

He helped Nevada punch above its weight on the national political stage by advocating that the state hold the first-in-the-West caucus in the nation in 2008, a move that has left Nevada’s presidential nominating contest just behind those in Iowa and New Hampshire. The caucus has brought droves of presidential contenders through the state every four years for the last four election cycles, elevating the state’s profile nationally.

He also turned the Nevada State Democratic Party into a well-oiled political operation — nicknamed the Reid Machine — responsible for securing numerous Democratic victories in close races over the last decade.

 

Everyone talks about all the fights Reid lost to Mitch McConnell, but frankly Reid was a Democratic player well after he left the Senate stage, and he won some critical legislative battles for Obama, including Obamacare and the nuclear option on appointing judges.

 

Oh, and Reid himself was an amateur boxer, who later became Nevada Gaming Commissioner, survived a Vegas mob car bomb attempt, and even had a movie role in Traffic.

Both of these men defined the roles they filled, and both will be missed.

Here's to you, Madden and Reid.

The Return Of Kynect...For Now

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has kept a major campaign promise: the return of the state's wildly successful Obamacare health exchange Kynect, eliminated by previous Gov. Matt Bevin because it was so successful and Bevin needed to prove that Kynect was a failure. When Bevin couldn't, he just killed it. Now Beshear has brought it back.

 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, with help from U.S. Health and Human Services Secrertary Xavier Becerra, rolled out the reopening Friday of Kynect, the state-based health insurance exchange.

Friday was the start of open enrollment for existing recipients of Medicaid, the government health plan for low-income people and those with disabilities. Open enrollment for private health plans on Kentucky’s exchange is from Nov. 1 to Jan. 15.

The exchange was started by Beshear’s father, former Gov. Steve Beshear, under the federal Affordable Care but was shuttered in favor of the federal health exchange by his successor, former Gov. Matt Bevin.

“I’m really excited about today. Kynect was the gold standard,” Andy Beshear said in a Zoom news conference with Becerra. “Health care coverage is neither red nor blue, Democrat or Republican. It is necessary for survival in a pandemic and it is necessary for Kentucky to thrive.”

Becerra praised Kynect, calling it a “Kentucky-made, Kentucky-driven and Kentucky-based product” and that no one knows better the health care needs of Kentuckians than Beshear. He labeled Beshear a “true champion of health care.”

Beshear said the goal is to get health insurance to 280,000 uninsured Kentuckians.

Beshear announced last year that he was bringing back Kynect, the online health exchange where people can shop for and buy health insurance, as well as sign up for Medicaid.

Kentucky received national praise for the program that brought about one of the lowest rates of uninsured in the country. Bevin, though, said it was too costly and redundant of the federal website to buy health insurance. He stopped it in 2017.

Beshear said Friday that Kentuckians now can browse plans and explore benefits at kynect.ky.gov that take effect Jan. 1, 2022.

Compared with current federal exchange offerings, Kentuckians will benefit in 2022 from more health care insurance providers and the opportunity to tailor coverage to address their unique needs, said Beshear.

He said the change is expected to save Kentuckians at least $15 million a year.

 

I'd take advantage of it while you can,  I fully expect the KY GOP supermajority to move Kynect under the aegis of Attorney General Daniel Cameron's office in January and then dismantle it in the spring, but it will be nice for a couple of months to live in a state when not everyone in political power wants poor people to die in order to stop burdening the commonwealth.

 

Don't expect Kynect to last more than a few months. Use it if you need to.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

The Road To Gilead series of posts documents red state America's journey into the fictional Christian theocracy of Gilead, the setting of The Handmaid's Tale books and Hulu series. I've been told by more than a few Village Betters™ types that it's overreaction, that the GOP wouldn't dare press women too hard or end up losing them altogether and becoming a rump reactionary mess with no power.

And yet it seems as they have for several years now, Republicans keep proving that theory wrong.

Missouri is at risk of losing $4.5 billion in tax revenue and federal funding for Medicaid because of a fight between lawmakers over contraceptives.

At issue is a state tax on hospitals, doctors and other health care providers that is used to draw down billions of dollars in federal funding for the government health insurance program, which covers children, low-income adults and people with disabilities.

The Republican-led Legislature adjourned last month without reauthorizing the tax after fighting over whether to include a ban on Medicaid coverage for “any drug or device approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration that may cause the destruction of or prevent the implantation of, an unborn child.”

Federal law requires Medicaid programs cover family planning.

The tax expires Sept. 30.

Republican Gov. Mike Parson has said he’ll start cutting the state budget if lawmakers don’t reup the tax by the start of the next fiscal year, July 1.

Now, three states, NC, AK, and TX, have already made cuts to contraception coverage in Medicaid. NC and AK allow insurers to provide plans without coverage of family planning, and Texas doesn't mandate coverage of emergency contraception at all.

But the Missouri GOP bill would in fact ban Medicaid from covering any birth control, IUDs, or any female contraception options.  It's monstrous.

This is the future the GOP has in store for women, robbing them of their bodily autonomy the second their wombs become involved, and a government that can successfully revoke Medicaid coverage for birth control can revoke all insurance coverage for birth control.

Or for, you know, anything else.

Last Call For A Supremely Historic Day

First, the good news: in a 7-2 ruling, the US Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act by dismissing Texas's challenge to the healthcare law.

 

The Supreme Court saved the Affordable Care Act yet again on Thursday, tossing out a Republican lawsuit that sought to overturn former president Barack Obama’s signature legislation.

The 7–2 decision brought together the court’s liberal wing and several of its more conservative members, including the two newest justices confirmed under former president Donald Trump, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.

The majority concluded that Texas and the other Republican state attorneys general who sued lacked standing to bring the case at all, a ruling that brought the yearslong fight to an end without delving into the substance of the latest challenge to the healthcare law. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the opinion, which was also joined by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

The ACA’s many provisions that transformed the US healthcare system will remain intact — including insurers being blocked from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions, regulated individual insurance markets, and an expansion of Medicaid plans to millions of people with low incomes.

To establish standing, a party has to show that they suffer an injury traceable to the issue at hand. The Texas lawsuit centered on the individual mandate portion of Obamacare, a tax on people who decline to purchase health insurance, which did not directly affect state governments at all. The Republican states tried to get around this by arguing that encouraging people to sign up for health insurance causes extra paperwork costs for states as an employer. “Those forms don’t produce themselves,” then–Texas solicitor general Kyle Hawkins argued before the Supreme Court in November.

The court wasn’t having it. During last year’s hearing, Justice Elena Kagan said the Texas argument would “explode” standing doctrine

The Republican states tried to argue that the individual mandate penalty — despite being $0 — increased their financial burden by driving more people to join state medical insurance programs. But the court forcefully rejected that argument.

“Neither logic nor evidence suggests that an unenforceable mandate will cause state residents to enroll in valuable benefits programs that they would otherwise forgo,” says the decision.

The justices ruled that granting standing in a case like this would essentially give the courts a blank check to overturn legislation. “It would threaten to grant unelected judges a general authority to conduct oversight of decisions of the elected branches of Government,” says the ruling.

 

Texas's argument was simply that the federal government trying to get states to do things was inherently harmful to the states, which is the equivalent of a ten-year-old saying sending them to bedtime causes them irreparable harm and that kids should be allowed to sue to stay up as long as they want. It would have been the end of These United States™ effectively.

Two justices, Alito and Gorsuch, ignored the standing question and agreed with the Texas argument that the entire ACA was rendered unconstitutional in 2017 over the SCOTUS ruling that ended the individual mandate four years ago.  But not even Clarence Thomas bought that argument, neither did Kavanaugh, Barrett, or Roberts.

But in the other major ruling handed down Thursday, the court found unanimously, 9-0, that the city of Philadelphia could not force a Catholic adoption agency to screen same-sex couples as foster care providers.

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that Philadelphia may not bar a Catholic agency that refused to work with same-sex couples from screening potential foster parents.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for six members of the court, said that since the city allowed exceptions to its policies for some other agencies it must also do so in this instance. The Catholic agency, he wrote, “seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else.”

The decision, in the latest clash between anti-discrimination principles and claims of conscience, was a setback for gay rights and further evidence that religious groups almost always prevail in the current court.

Philadelphia stopped placements with the agency, Catholic Social Services, after a 2018 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer described its policy against placing children with same-sex couples. The agency and several foster parents sued the city, saying the decision violated their First Amendment rights to religious freedom and free speech.

Lawyers for the city said the case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, No. 19-123, was an easy one. When the government hires independent contractors like the Catholic agency, they said, it acts on its own behalf and can include provisions barring discrimination in its contracts.

Lawyers for the agency responded that it merely wanted to continue work that it had been doing for centuries, adding that no gay couple had ever applied to it. If one had, they said, the couple would have been referred to another agency.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, ruled against the agency. The city was entitled to require compliance with its nondiscrimination policies, the count said.

The case was broadly similar to that of a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

In 2018, the Supreme Court refused to decide the central issue in that case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission: whether businesses may claim exemptions from anti-discrimination laws on religious grounds. It ruled instead that the baker had been mistreated by members of the state’s civil rights commission who had expressed hostility toward religion.

The foster care agency relied on the Colorado decision, arguing that it too had been subjected to hostility based on anti-religious prejudice. The city responded that the agency was not entitled to rewrite government contracts to eliminate anti-discrimination clauses.

 

The Roberts Court has made it very clear over the last several years that religious freedom trumps legal equality, and that government entities must always accommodate an organization's religious beliefs to deny services, employment, or recognition on the basis of sexual orientation. It is still a very loud reminder that both federal law and legal precedent still finds LGBTQ people to be permanently second-class citizens if their existence serves to harm the religious beliefs of others.

It's repugnant, but it will not change in my lifetime. It is the "separate, but equal" doctrine for the 21st century.

 

But Democrats didn't excite people, so we ended up with Trump packing the courts.

Obamacare 2: Bidencare

Getting Medicaid expansion to red states that have turned it down has been a major Biden campaign promise, but keeping that promise won't be easy, or cheap, and like everything else the Dems are trying to do, they're running out of time before they potentially lose the House, Senate, or both.

Democratic lawmakers are rallying around an effort to extend health insurance in states that have refused to expand Medicaid, believing they have a limited window to help millions who’ve been unable to get coverage because of intractable GOP opposition to the Obamacare program.

Democrats had hoped that President Joe Biden’s election, along with the promise of new federal cash from the recent Covid relief package for states to expand Medicaid, would move at least some of the dozen remaining holdout states. But there’s little indication those states are budging, which is energizing a push among Democratic lawmakers for a new federal program guaranteeing coverage for low-income adults long shut out of Medicaid expansion.

“I think in most of them, like Texas, it's not a question of dollars, it’s a question of wanting to be ideologically opposed to any additional role for government in helping impoverished people,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), the House Ways and Means health subcommittee chairman, who’s working on a coverage proposal. “The only way we overcome that is through a federal initiative.”

Expanding coverage to the estimated 2.2 million people lacking affordable health insurance options in the Medicaid expansion holdout states would fulfill a Biden campaign pledge while his other key health care promises, like government drug price negotiations and a public option, face tough odds in Congress. Democrats also believe it would deliver a major win for their party heading into tightly contested midterm elections next year, given that Medicaid expansion has polled well — including in states where Republican leaders have blocked it for years.

However, the new effort carries risks that Democratic lawmakers, White House officials and health care advocates have been struggling to resolve in behind-the-scenes discussions over the past few months, say people involved in those talks. One challenge is designing a program that won’t invite backlash from a health care industry ready to battle Democrats on other sweeping changes. Another concern is inadvertently rewarding states that blocked Medicaid expansion for years. Any plan would also come with a steep price tag.

"There is pretty universal acknowledgment that action is needed to address the population,” said Henry Connelly, spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Everyone is exploring ways to get it done.”

Democratic lawmakers are weighing a few options that could potentially get wrapped into a major economic package they hope to pass along party lines this year. But they haven’t yet agreed on an approach, and Democratic leaders are facing competing demands to use upcoming infrastructure legislation to expand Medicare eligibility and benefits, mandate drug price negotiations and bolster Obamacare subsidies.

Health care advocates caution that Democrats have limited time to address stalled progress on Medicaid expansion — seen as the biggest unfinished piece of the Affordable Care Act — while the party controls Washington for the first time since the law’s passage a decade ago.

“This is the moment,” said Judy Solomon, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. “This is probably the only moment that we’ll have for years.”

 

Maybe I'm being fatalistic but my entire life has been "Democrats with a limited 2-year window of doing the right thing, making limited progress, then seeing a lot of that progress destroyed by Republicans" and yeah, I want to see things improve dramatically, for once.

In a lot of ways it has already.

Last Call For Just As Corrupt As Trump

Republicans are just as corrupt as Trump, never forget that. The major takeaway from a Justice Department run by Bill Barr is that Republicans are assured they'll never be caught. Well, short of being turned in, that is.

Top aides of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have asked federal law enforcement authorities to investigate allegations of improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential crimes against the state’s top lawyer.

In a one-page letter to the state agency’s director of human resources, obtained Saturday by the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV, seven executives in the upper tiers of the office said that they are seeking the investigation into Paxton “in his official capacity as the current Attorney General of Texas.”

The Thursday letter said that each “has knowledge of facts relevant to these potential offenses and has provided statements concerning those facts to the appropriate law enforcement.”

Paxton, a 57-year-old Republican, was elected in 2014. His office said in a statement Saturday evening: “The complaint filed against Attorney General Paxton was done to impede an ongoing investigation into criminal wrongdoing by public officials including employees of this office. Making false claims is a very serious matter and we plan to investigate this to the fullest extent of the law.”

The statement did not elaborate.

The letter to human resources was signed by Paxton’s first assistant, Jeff Mateer, who resigned Friday, as well as Mateer’s deputy and deputy attorneys general overseeing divisions that include criminal investigations, civil litigation, administration and policy.

“We have a good faith belief that the attorney general is violating federal and/or state law including prohibitions related to improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses,” the letter states.

 

Also, let's not pretend anyone who voluntarily works for someone like Ken Paxton is a good person, either. The main whistleblower, Jeff Mateer, may have resigned, but he's just as terrible.

Their decisions to report possible illegal activity involving their employer represents a stunning development in an agency that prizes loyalty, particularly from within Paxton’s inner circle. It places a renewed spotlight on Paxton, who is already under indictment for alleged securities fraud.

The complaint concluded by saying that they notified Paxton in a text message Thursday that they had reported the alleged violations to law enforcement.

The whistle blowers, who notified human resources to protect their jobs, offered no other details about the allegations and do not describe what they believe Paxton did that was illegal. Efforts to reach them were unsuccessful Saturday.

Mateer’s inclusion in the complaint letter, and his departure as Paxton’s second in command, was particularly significant, coming from a political ally who shared a conservative Christian perspective on many social and legal issues.

When President Donald Trump tapped Mateer to become a federal judge in 2017, Paxton lauded him as “a principled leader — a man of character — who has done an outstanding job for the State of Texas.”

Mateer’s nomination was later withdrawn after revelations of anti-LGBT remarks, including calling transgender children part of “Satan’s plan.”

 

Ken Paxton is leading the charge to destroy the ACA and take health care coverage for tens of millions of Americans away. He is a monster. And he's so corrupt, not only is he facing securities fraud charges, he got ratted out by his own office for taking bribes. 

Never forget that Donald Trump is just the orange face on a nationally corrupt and evil political party of racist psychopathic assholes.

The Race To Replace, Con't

Huckleberry Graham said on FOX News State TV last night that the regime's rubber stamp court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, will be confirmed by the Senate Judiciary by October 22, leaving Mitch McConnell the ultimate October surprise, a week to hold a full Senate confirmation floor vote before the election.

 

Republican and Democratic leaders reacted largely along party lines to President Donald Trump's nomination on Saturday of a conservative federal judge to fill the seat left by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Overwhelmingly, Republicans called Amy Coney Barrett a well-qualified candidate and pushed for a confirmation in the upcoming weeks. Democrats continued to criticize the timing, with some outright saying they wouldn't meet with the nominee.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., confirmed that the hearings would begin on Monday, Oct. 12 with opening statements from Barrett and members of the Judiciary Committee. The next two days would be reserved for questioning from the committee. Testimony from those who know Barrett and legal experts would either come following questioning on Wednesday or on Thursday.

In an interview with Fox News Saturday night, Graham said, "I expect the nominee will be challenged and that's appropriate to challenge the nominee. If they treat Judge Barrett like they did Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh it's going to blow up in their face big time."

Graham said he hopes to move Barrett out of committee by Oct. 26 -- just eight days before Election Day.

 

Americans overwhelmingly believe that the seat should be filled after the election by the winner. 

A clear majority of voters believes the winner of the presidential election should fill the Supreme Court seat left open by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, according to a national poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, a sign of the political peril President Trump and Senate Republicans are courting by attempting to rush through an appointment before the end of the campaign.

In a survey of likely voters taken in the week leading up to Mr. Trump’s nomination on Saturday of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the high court, 56 percent said they preferred to have the election act as a sort of referendum on the vacancy. Only 41 percent said they wanted Mr. Trump to choose a justice before November.

More striking, the voters Mr. Trump and endangered Senate Republicans must reclaim to close the gap in the polls are even more opposed to a hasty pick: 62 percent of women, 63 percent of independents and 60 percent of college-educated white voters said they wanted the winner of the campaign to fill the seat.

 

Democrats aren't completely helpless to stop the nomination before the election, but there's only so much they can do.

Interviews with more than a dozen Democratic senators revealed broad support for disrupting the Supreme Court confirmation process, even if the strategy yields some collateral damage. Yet Democrats facing tough reelections and those who typically spurn delay tactics overwhelmingly support the hardball campaign, potentially putting them at increased risk of losing their seats.

“We know that the votes are not there [to block the nominee], but you do what you can to call attention to it,” said Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent who could be pulled off the campaign trail as a result. “The issue is that this is a power grab.”

“We can’t do business as usual in a situation that’s so extraordinary where the Republicans are breaking their word to rush a nominee so they can kill the Affordable Care Act,” added Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “We can’t just say, oh, yeah, that’s normal. Sorry.”

The goal, senators and aides say, is to highlight what Democrats see as hypocrisy and a blatant abuse of power on the part of McConnell (R-Ky.), who blocked President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee in 2016 but is pressing forward with the goal of confirming President Donald Trump’s pick, Amy Coney Barrett, before Election Day. McConnell only needs a simple majority after Republicans eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees in 2017. And if Democrats can prevent Barrett from being seated on the court before Nov. 10, she likely wouldn’t be able to rule on the Trump administration’s effort to invalidate Obamacare.

Democratic senators were quick to justify the retaliation effort, which is only getting started with less than 40 days until the Nov. 3 election.

“Process is everything,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). “So if you’re going to use the process to try to steal an election, then we’re going to use the process to try to do everything for that not to happen.”

 

Dems are saying "We're trying to save Obamacare and millions of people here." It's a good plan. It won't keep Barrett off the court before January, but it could save the ACA for now.

 

It's a gamble. Dems have to win control of the Senate and Biden has to win as well, and we have to defeat whatever measures the Trump regime will take to outright steal the election.

 

We'll all need to be ready, starting with early voting.

Last Call For Unseemaly Conduct

Another week, another Inspector General finds corruption in the Trump regime (well, an IG that Trump hasn't fired yet at any rate) and this time it involves the regime's top Medicare and Medicaid official, Seema Verma.

A top Trump administration health official violated federal contracting rules by steering millions of taxpayer dollars in contracts that ultimately benefited GOP-aligned communications consultants, according to an inspector general report set to be released today. 

The contracts, which were directed by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Seema Verma, were only halted after a POLITICO investigation raised questions about their legality and the agency had paid out more than $5 million to the contractors. 

The 70-page HHS inspector general report — the result of a 15-month audit — calls on HHS and CMS to take nine separate actions to address the "significant deficiencies" that it identified. Those actions include conducting a review of all the department's contracts, and making a closer examination of whether CMS overpaid several of its contractors. 

The report paints a detailed portrait of Verma's use of federal contracts to install allies who managed high-priority projects and exercised broad authority within CMS, while circumventing the agency's career officials and funding projects that ethics experts have said wasted taxpayers’ money. 

“CMS improperly administered the contracts and created improper employer-employee relationships between CMS and the contractors,” the inspector general wrote, detailing how Verma leaned on her hand-picked consultants rather than hundreds of civil servants in her communications department. “CMS’s administration of these contracts put the Government at increased risk for waste and abuse.” 

For instance, the report cites numerous examples across her first two years leading CMS of Verma personally directing contractors to craft her speeches and remarks, working with them to secure media appearances and even accompanying one for a “Girl’s Night Out” networking event. While the inspector general uses pseudonyms to describe individual contractors, POLITICO has previously identified the individuals cited in the report. 

Verma — a close ally of Vice President Mike Pence — has emerged as a key leader of the White House coronavirus task force, overseeing billions of dollars in emergency payments to doctors and hospitals, rolling out new rules affecting nursing homes and championing the use of telemedicine. She also runs the nation's largest health care safety-net programs — Medicare and Medicaid — in addition to overseeing Obamacare, as head of a trillion-dollar agency with sweeping regulatory authority over the U.S. health care system. 

Verma has spent more than a year defending the contracts, testifying to Congress that they were “consistent” with previous communications arrangements and focused on promoting the agency, not her. 

However, the inspector general concluded that Verma and her team “did not administer and manage the contracts in accordance with Federal requirements.” The watchdog also faulted the health department for failing to adequately manage the contracts, which auditors linked to potential duplicate spending and other “questionable costs,” such as a $150,000 payout for a canceled bus tour. 

At other times, Verma’s hand-picked contractors — including her former communications specialist, Marcus Barlow, who had worked as a spokesperson on behalf of Verma’s consulting firm but had been blocked from taking a job at CMS — personally steered federal staff and policies in ways that appeared to flout contracting rules, according to the inspector general.

Keep in mind being in charge of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, Verma controls more than a trillion dollars in federal funds every year.   So yeah, looking at her books a bit more closely is probably a good idea.

I like how she (so far) has avoided the obvious Medicare fraud angle which being watched more closely would have gotten her busted years ago and instead paid off GOP PR firms through the department's communications budget, that's pretty clever. Verma's clearly been at this game long enough to rip off Indiana taxpayers when working for Pence and figured she'd use the same tricks at the federal level.

That of course brings up two questions, one, who else is she paying off to when it comes to the big healthcare money, and two, what was Verma getting in return for these communications contracts?

My initial answers are "Whomever Pence told her to" and "She expected favors from these firms after leaving the Trump regime and going back to her consulting business".

Should be fun to find out.

A Supreme Pronouncement

In an 8-1 decision, the US Supreme Court took a flamethrower to Republican "risk corridors" that starved insurers of money promised to them in the original ACA, meaning the Trump regime owes back payments on Obamacare.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled the federal government owes health insurers massive payments from an Obamacare program shielding them from financial risks after the companies accused Washington of reneging on its funding promises.

The 8-1 decision could open the floodgates for federal cash to the insurance industry. Insurers who accused the government of a “bait and switch” claimed they’re owed $12 billion from the Affordable Care Act program.

The case concerned a temporary fund in the health care law intended as a buffer for health plans who had sicker customers than expected in the newly overhauled insurance marketplaces. Obamacare’s drafters hoped the program would be funded by industry, but health plans quickly racked up losses when the marketplaces opened in 2014. The next year, Republican lawmakers approved the first in a series of annual appropriations riders barring HHS from using taxpayer dollars to bankroll the program, known as risk corridors.

The high court agreed with insurers that the congressional spending restrictions didn’t release the government from its original promise to fund the Obamacare program. The court said Congress had created "a rare money-mandating obligation" that later appropriations language couldn't repeal.

"These holdings reflect a principle as old as the Nation itself: The Government should honor its obligations," wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in the majority opinion.

Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissenting opinion, criticized the ruling as effectively providing a massive bailout for the insurance industry.

"Under the court’s decision, billions of taxpayer dollars will be turned over to insurance companies that bet unsuccessfully on the success of the program in question," Alito wrote.

The ruling came year too late however, and may not matter at all in a year...

The decision will have little impact on Obamacare. The law faces a legal threat in a separate case brought by Republican-led states challenging the law’s constitutionality, which the Supreme Court has agreed to hear, likely later this year. But the ruling represents a loss for the Trump administration, which argued it wasn’t obligated to make the risk corridor payments and is supporting the red states’ lawsuit.

The three-year risk corridors program closed in 2016. Insurance experts said the program’s $12 billion shortfall contributed to turbulence in Obamacare’s early years, as health plans jacked up premiums to cover their losses or abandoned the marketplaces.

So again, it's effectively a moot point now as risk corridors are gone, and probably a moot point later as all of Obamacare could be gone in 12 months.

Thanks GOP!

Tales Of The Trump Depression

There's nothing else to call it but what it is: The Trump Depression.

More than 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week — a record — as political and public health leaders put the economy in a deep freeze, keeping people at home and trying to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

The past two weeks have seen more people file for unemployed claims than during the first six months of the Great Recession, a sign of how rapid, deep and painful the economic shutdown has been on many American families who are struggling to pay rent and health insurance costs in the midst of a pandemic.

Job losses have skyrocketed as restaurants, hotels, gyms, and travel have shut down across the nation, but layoffs are also rising in manufacturing, warehousing and transportation, a sign of how widespread the pain of the coronavirus recession is.

In March, 10.4 million Americans lost their jobs and applied for government aid, according to the latest Labor Department data, which includes claims filed through March 28. Many economists say the real number of people out work is likely even higher, since a lot of newly unemployed Americans haven’t been able to fill out a claim yet.

The U.S. government has not released an official unemployment rate yet, but economists say it has likely jumped to about 10 percent and could easily hit the highest level since the Great Depression in the coming months.

It will only get worse in the weeks ahead.  The $1200 check Americans are going to get plus unemployment benefits is it.  There's no more help coming. Republicans are tired of it and refuse.

One week after the Senate unanimously passed a $2 trillion emergency relief bill aimed at limiting the financial trauma from the coronavirus pandemic, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he would move slowly on considering any follow-up legislation and would ignore the latest efforts by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to jump-start talks.

McConnell’s sweeping dismissal of Pelosi’s urgent call for action underscored the uncertainty and fierce political warfare in Congress as the coronavirus outbreak shuts down much of the nation and throttles the economy, with little consensus on what should follow the biggest rescue package in U.S. history and lingering tensions from those negotiations between McConnell and Pelosi.

“She needs to stand down on the notion that we’re going to go along with taking advantage of the crisis to do things that are unrelated to the crisis,” McConnell said in an interview with The Washington Post, calling the speaker’s recent comments about a fourth round of virus-related legislation “premature.”

In response, Pelosi said she would carry on.

"We can't pay for it."  We could pay for $1.5 trillion in giveaways to corporations and the 1% though.  Imagine that.  Now we're in the opening stages of a global depression that will last years.

The small business loan program created by the CARES act?  It's going to be a disaster, because it was never meant to work.

Banks are warning that a $350 billion lending program for struggling small businesses won't be ready when it launches Friday because the Trump administration has failed to provide them with the necessary guidelines and set requirements for the loans that are unworkable.

The lenders complain that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin boxed them in with an unrealistic deadline and that the ground rules they've been given for the program, which is intended to deliver rapid aid to a huge number of ailing businesses, could delay the assistance for weeks or longer.

The banks, which will be responsible for processing loan applications and doling out money, are expecting millions of applications from businesses. Some fear a disaster that could dwarf the failed kickoff of the Obamacare enrollment web site in 2013.

“Banks are ready and willing to lend, but they need clear rules of the road and a streamlined process to be able to get funding into the hands of small business owners in the coming days,” said Greg Baer, president and CEO of the Bank Policy Institute, which represents the nation's biggest lenders.

Ten million out of work.  Millions more coming.  All will lose their health insurance.  And Trump won't open up the ACA so that millions can sign up for Obamacare, because Republican states are still in the middle of trying to have the Supreme Court throw the entire law out.

The Great Recession lasted as long as it did because Republicans dragged their feet on the stimulus bill to make sure sufficient time was available to transfer wealth to the top.  They did it again with the Trump Trillion Dollar Tax Scam in January 2018.

Americans have nothing to fall back on now.  The month ahead will be the most miserable in American history, and the Republicans responsible are going to find out that yes, the American people have their limits.

They're Coming For Obamacare Again, Con't

The US Supreme Court will take up the Republican lawsuit to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, just not this term that ends in June. Unfortunately, that means they could hear the lawsuit say, right before the election in November.

The Supreme Court on Monday said it will take up a Republican challenge to Obamacare, in a move that boosts Democrats who want to highlight the lawsuit’s threat to health care coverage during campaign season.

The justices said they would hear the case, likely later this year, after turning down an earlier request from Democrats to fast-track a ruling by June. The decision increases pressure on President Donald Trump over health care, a top concern for voters and an issue that has benefited Democrats since the GOP's failed effort to repeal Obamacare during Trump's first year in office.
However, it’s unlikely the justices will rule before the election on the lawsuit, which could wipe out the Affordable Care Act’s insurance protections and coverage for millions of people. The court is expected to hear the case during its next term starting in October, but the court did not yet say when it will hear oral arguments.

The suit, brought by more than a dozen red states, emerged as a threat to Obamacare in December, when a panel of federal appeals court judges found the law unconstitutional. Instead of ruling on the entire law, the appellate panel sent the challenge back to a federal judge in Texas who previously invalidated the entire law, jolting Democrats who feared the move would extend the legal fight over Obamacare for years.

Democratic state attorneys general and the Democratic-led House of Representatives, who are defending the law in court, quickly asked the Supreme Court to intercept the case. The Trump administration, which supports the Texas-led lawsuit, and the states challenging Obamacare urged the justices against intervening right away.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who's leading the Democrats' Obamacare defense, hailed the court's decision to take the case.

"As Texas and the Trump Administration fight to disrupt our healthcare system and the coverage that millions of people rely upon, we look forward to making our case in defense of the ACA. American lives depend upon it,' he said in a statement.

Although the justices last month rejected Democrats’ request to expedite a ruling on the case by June, at the time they left open the possibility they would take the case on a regular schedule.

Though the court doesn’t disclose how justices vote on whether to review a case, legal observers believed the bench’s four liberal members likely supported Democrats’ petition. To accept a case, at least four justices must agree.

Still, it's rare that justices review a case before it's received full consideration in lower courts — and the decision to do so underscores the monumental stakes of a case could upend coverage for millions of people and create chaos across the health care system.

Republican states want out of Obamacare because they want their people with no private health insurance to, you know, go away.  The problem is now, ten years later, Obamacare is popular among even Republican voters.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that 55 percent of the public views the health law favorably, the highest level since KFF began polling the question about 10 years ago. Just 37 percent said they view it unfavorably.
ObamaCare was long viewed more unfavorably than favorably, especially during the troubled rollout of the healthcare.gov website in late 2013.

But that changed with President Trump’s election in 2016, when favorability began rising amid the Republican push to repeal the law in 2017.

The health care law has now become a political asset for Democrats, who highlighted Republican repeal attempts to help win back the House in 2018. The law's protections for people with pre-existing conditions have been particularly popular.

The push by the GOP to get rid of Obamacare in 2017 set the stage for them losing the House in 2018.  The push in 2020 to do the same through the courts will hopefully help cost Trump his current job.

We'll see what the Roberts Court decides, but don't expect a decision on this until June 2021.

They're Coming For Your Obamacare Again, Con't

Republicans are openly saying they want millions of Americans to lose their health coverage while cheering on the Texas lawsuit contending the ACA's constitutionality, but once again, after nearly ten years of trying to destroy the law, the GOP still has no plans to replace it heading into the 2020 elections.

After a decade of trying to gut Obamacare, Republicans may finally get their wish thanks to a Trump administration-backed lawsuit. Its success would cause chaos not only in the insurance markets but on Capitol Hill. And Republican senators largely welcome it — even if they don’t know what comes next.
“I’m ready for it to succeed,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). “I would love to get back in and actually deal with health care again.”

“Do I hope the lawsuit succeeds? I do,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). “What I wish is we had some idea where we are going if it does succeed, as it looks more and more like it might.”

Even Republicans not known for taking a hard line are eager for a forcing mechanism to take on Obamacare.

“I have a plan that I would be delighted to have Congress pick up and go forward with,” added Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) of a proposal to protect pieces of the law. “Necessity is the mother of acceptance. I hope that we reach that necessity and that would propel my proposal to see a good deal of support.”

Both Cramer and Romney said GOP discussions were picking up about how to step in if the law falls after a U.S. appeals court indicated last week it could kill all or part of the law, though the Supreme Court would have the final say. Democrats and Republicans are also working on a modest package of bills intended to lower health care costs.

But when it comes to major changes to Obamacare, the parties aren’t talking.

Democratic leaders have no intention of working with the GOP since they want the Affordable Care Act to survive. And there’s no reason to think that Senate Republicans could unify on a replacement to the law after previously failing to do so.

“If it did succeed, I would be very concerned,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) of the lawsuit. “I don’t think there’s a plan in place to take care of individuals who’ve been using the exchanges to purchase their insurance or who have been covered under the Medicaid expansion. I’m just hoping the court doesn’t strike it down.”

Democrats are ready to hammer Republicans if the law gets taken down because of the GOP lawsuit. Democrats took back the House last year in large part because of their focus on health care.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the GOP’s stance “repeal without a replace.”

“Every plan Republicans have put forward has failed to maintain the protections offered under the current law,” he said. “It's pretty simple: If you care about maintaining protections for people with preexisting conditions, you don’t demand they be taken away.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a close Schumer ally, added, “They better do something. If not, this is all on them. This is all on Mitch McConnell."

Healthcare is the one area where the Democrats win hands down, and if the GOP lawsuit does win and SCOTUS blows up the ACA, it's all on the Republicans.  They'll never be able to put a plan together in time.

And millions will suffer, a lot of them Trump voters.

We'll see if that's enough to shock them out of their racism...but I doubt it.

Last Call For Coming For Your Healthcare, Again, Con't

A three-judge appellate panel heard augments today by several Republican attorneys general that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, and the two GOP-appointed judges on the panel appeared to have heavy skepticism that the law should be allowed to continue.

A federal appeals court panel grilled Democratic attorneys general on Tuesday about whether Obamacare violates the U.S. Constitution, as it weighs whether to uphold a Texas judge’s ruling striking down the landmark healthcare reform law.

The judges focused on whether the 2010 Affordable Care Act lost its justification after Republican President Donald Trump in 2017 signed a law that eliminated a tax penalty used to enforce the ACA’s mandate that all Americans buy health insurance.
Republicans have repeatedly tried and failed to repeal Obamacare since its 2010 passage. The Justice Department would normally defend a federal law, but the Trump administration has declined to take that position against a challenge by 18 Republican-led states.

“If you no longer have a tax, why isn’t it unconstitutional?” Judge Jennifer Elrod, who was appointed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals by Republican President George W. Bush, asked attorneys for the Democratic officials defending the law during a hearing in New Orleans.

A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general led by California’s Xavier Becerra stepped up to defend the law. The U.S. House of Representatives intervened after Democrats won control in November’s elections during which many focused their campaigns on defending Obamacare.

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is not expected to decide on Tuesday whether to overturn or uphold the ruling by a federal judge in Texas last year that the entire ACA was unconstitutional.

An appellate ruling declaring Obamacare unconstitutional could prompt an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, opening the door for the top court to take up the issue in the midst of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. 

Republicans have been trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act for nine years now.  Making health care and millions of Trump voters losing health coverage the top issue of 2020 seems like a pretty stupid idea, but Republicans are clearly counting on Democrats to vote to overturn it and surrender to a GOP "replacement" bill rather than risk a loss at SCOTUS, where this will be headed either way.

We'll see what the judges do later this year, and how quickly this case gets to SCOTUS.

The Reach To Impeach, Con't

Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare has finally admitted that giving Attorney General Bill Barr the benefit of the doubt was a "catastrophic" idea.

I was willing to give Bill Barr a chance. Consider me burned.

When Barr was nominated, I wrote a cautious piece for this magazine declining to give him “a character reference” and acknowledging “legitimate reasons to be concerned about [his] nomination,” but nonetheless concluding that “I suspect that he is likely as good as we’re going to get. And he might well be good enough. Because most of all, what the department needs right now is honest leadership that will insulate it from the predations of the president.”

When he wrote his first letter to Congress announcing the principal conclusions of the Mueller report, I wrote another piece saying, “For the next two weeks, let’s give Attorney General William Barr the benefit of the doubt” on the question of releasing the report in a timely and not-too-redacted fashion.

I took a lot of criticism for these pieces—particularly the second one, in which I specifically said we should evaluate Barr’s actual performance in regard to releasing the Mueller report, and thus wait for him to act, rather than denouncing him preemptively.

Barr has now acted, and we can now evaluate his actual, rather than his hypothesized, performance.

It has been catastrophic. Not in my memory has a sitting attorney general more diminished the credibility of his department on any subject. It is a kind of trope of political opposition in every administration that the attorney general—whoever he or she is—is politicizing the Justice Department and acting as a defense lawyer for the president. In this case it is true.

And yet, there is very little that Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats can actually do.

Attorney General William Barr’s snub of a House hearing on Robert Mueller’s Russia report exposed that Democrats are in an awkward position: They don’t have any good options for forcing the Trump administration to cooperate with their multiple investigations.

Democrats seeking to compel -- or punish -- Barr and others who ignore Democratic invitations and subpoenas could pursue contempt proceedings, which carry no tangible penalty when branches of government face off, or take action in court, which would be protracted.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leaders are resisting the other obvious option -- moving to impeach the president -- even as Republicans goad them on.

Barr didn’t show up as scheduled Thursday to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, complaining about the format for questioning. That came as Barr and the Justice Department defied a committee subpoena to turn over the full, unredacted version of Special Counsel Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the evidence behind it.

“This is a great danger to American democracy,” Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said. "We are going to use what process we have in the courts and elsewhere to get the answers and the information we need."

Meanwhile for his next trick, Bill Barr is arguing that all of Obamacare is unconstitutional because Congress eliminated the individual mandate penalty in 2017.

We're maybe one, two SCOTUS summers max away from an autocracy, guys.

Republicans Get Drugged Up

The House Republican Freedom Caucus for some reason certainly doesn't seem to be too concerned about prescription drug prices or the older Republican voters suffering because they're so high, going so far as to publicly warn pharmaceutical companies not to cooperate with the House Oversight Committee's investigation to determine why Americans pay more for prescription drugs than any other country on Earth.

In an unusual move, House Republicans are warning drug companies against complying with a House investigation into drug prices.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee sent letters to a dozen CEOs of major drug companies warning that information they provide to the committee could be leaked to the public by Democratic chair Elijah Cummings in an effort to tank their stock prices.

Cummings requested information from 12 drug companies such as Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis AG in January as part of a broad investigationinto how the industry sets prescription drug prices.

In their letters, Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows — leaders of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus — imply that Cummings may be attempting to collect the information in order to bring down the industry’s stock prices.

They write that Cummings is seeking sensitive information “that would likely harm the competitiveness of your company if disclosed publicly.” They then accuse Cummings of “releasing cherry-picked excerpts from a highly sensitive closed-door interview” conducted in an investigation into White House security clearances. “This is not the first time he has released sensitive information unilaterally,” says the letter. The authors say they “feel obliged to alert” the drug companies of Cummings’ actions.

Democrats expressed bafflement at the letters. While politicians routinely spar over committee work, warning companies not to comply with an investigation is unconventional — perhaps even unprecedented, Democrats say.

“Rep. Jordan is on the absolute wrong side here,” Cummings said in an emailed statement to BuzzFeed News. “He would rather protect drug company ‘stock prices’ than the interests of the American people.”

In their letter, Jordan and Meadows say that “while we cannot speculate about Chairman Cummings’ motives,” the committee should not pursue an investigation designed to impact stock prices.

It's ridiculous on its face, and I can't see how siding with the folks making insulin cost thousands of dollars per dose over Americans is going to help the GOP in 2020, but hey, keep making this about health care, guys.

Senator Batboy's Guide To Health Care

I have to admit, whoever is writing the Trump Show that we're all stuck in presently keeps making such beautifully obscene villain casting choices that even Hollywood is jealous.  Take this week's example where our old friend Rick Scott, recently upgraded from Governor to Senator by many, many Florida Men, is now the Trump regime's pointman on health care.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is taking the lead on Republican health care policy as the Trump administration tries once again to end Obamacare. 

President Trump named Scott and fellow GOP U.S. Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana as his point people on Capitol Hill at a question-and-answer session at the White House. 

"They are going to come up with something really spectacular," Trump told reporters Thursday. 

Scott’s new role is a long way from his political origins in 2009 and 2010, when as one of the earliest critics of Obamacare, he launched ads arguing that pre-existing condition protections would cause premiums to skyrocket.

Scott also was the CEO of the hospital company Columbia/HCA in the 1990s, who resigned four months after a federal inquiry into the company was made public. The company was later fined $1.7 billion in 2000 and 2007 for what was then the largest case of Medicare fraud in history.

And yet somehow he was able to parlay billions in Medicare fraud into a lucrative political career long before Trump was ever elected, just another argument in favor of the theory that the GOP is the problem and Trump is the symptom. Rick Scott should be serving his second decade in prison going on his third.  Instead, he's serving in the US Senate.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what's wrong with America.

Scott goes on to say that he wants to lower prescription drug prices, but the catch is that prices can't be higher than other "industrialized nations" and of course, Scott gets to define what that means.

It sounds great, but of course Scott is a professional conman, fraudster, and grifter.  What his real plan happens to be is one the Dems will reject on the fine print in both the House and Senate so the GOP can run attack ads.  Pretty sick April Fools' joke if you ask me.

It's Dems' own fault if they can't see this trap a mile away.

They're Coming For Obamacare Again

As I've been saying for a while now, Trump's main motivation is petty revenge, and there's nothing he likes more than punishing the Obama coalition.  There's no better way to get of us, he figures, than to take health care away from tens of millions, and the post-Mueller Trump regime is now fully dedicated to obliterating the ACA through the Roberts Court.

The Trump administration on Monday said the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down,in a dramatic reversal. 

In a filing with a federal appeals court, the Justice Department said it agreed with the ruling of a federal judge in Texas that invalidated the Obama-era health care law. 

In a letter Monday night, the administration said "it is not urging that any portion of the district court's judgment be reversed." 

"The Department of Justice has determined that the district court's comprehensive opinion came to the correct conclusion and will support it on appeal," said Kerri Kupec, spokesperson for the Justice Department. 

It's a major shift for the Justice Department from when Jeff Sessions was attorney general. At the time, the administration argued that the community rating rule and the guaranteed issue requirement -- protections for people with pre-existing conditions -- could not be defended but the rest of the law could stand. 

After the Justice Department took that position, federal District Judge Reed O'Connor struck down the entire law and the case is currently before a federal appeals court. 

The Trump administration would not defend the law in court so a coalition of 21 Democratic states led by California stepped in. 

"This lawsuit is as dangerous as it is reckless. It threatens the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans across the country -- from California to Kentucky and all the way to Maine," said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a statement. "The Affordable Care Act is an integral part of our healthcare system. ... Because no American should fear losing healthcare, we will defend the ACA every step of the way."

Attorney General Bill Barr has been given his marching orders.  The plan now is to take everything from those who voted against Trump.  That battle will be fought very soon in front of the Roberts Court.  There are absolutely four votes to overturn the Affordable Care Act.  All that matters is whether or not Chief Justice John Roberts is willing to be number five.

The plan now is to take it all from us.  Up to and including our health care.

Having said that, the ACA is broken.  It needs to be fixed.  It will never be fixed as long as Republicans are there to rebreak it.  But the GOP wants to take that from us anyway.

For some of us, that means taking our lives.