View Full Version : Supreme Court Decision Predictions, Anyone?
gimmethesimplelife
6-11-15, 6:59pm
Just curious, anyone out there have any predictions as to how the Supreme Court is going to decide the fate of ObamaCare and gay marriage?
My guess is that gay marriage will pass, especially due to the remarkable and amazing progress that has been made in this area in such a short time. I am fairly confident of this prediction but then again I have been wrong before.
As to ObamaCare, I'm 50/50.....I worry about those who finally have had health care access losing it due to a technicality and how many deaths will this cause and how many people will be put out on the street due to this, and once again, so many people giving America a free pass as to these issues. I hope this is not to be but I don't have much faith.
Rob
I wonder if it will just coincidentally be timed to coincide with the passage of the Pacific trade agreement?
Perhaps someone should have read the ACA before they voted on it. Then they could have avoided this particular challenge, had they fixed the buggy text.
Alas, laws generally don't mean "what we want them to mean", they mean "what we wrote". I'm currently reviewing about 120 pages of Shoreline Management legislation for the County, and we'll have quite a few legal challenges to that anyways, so we're trying to get the text correct. Our Critical Areas legislation of two years ago was hundreds of pages as well, and ended up with only a couple of typos and bits of confusing language that the courts had us fix, after about a dozen people appealed on both sides of the fence.
Or perhaps the text wasn't 'buggy' but rather the bug was a feature intended to cause exactly the current situation.
Or perhaps the text wasn't 'buggy' but rather the bug was a feature intended to cause exactly the current situation.
Yick, indeed :-(
You'd think if you were going to do the job of crafting a massive pile of legislation, you'd at least do an honest, quality job of it. Weasels.
ApatheticNoMore
6-11-15, 11:38pm
I wonder if it will just coincidentally be timed to coincide with the passage of the Pacific trade agreement?
The Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement will raise prescription drug prices worldwide. All those countries that supposedly have more affordable medicine? Kiss it goodbye. That's what Obamatrade (the trade agreements) means = the U.S. undermining other countries health care systems (and doing ours no favor either as we won't be able to control prescription costs either).
Australian and New Zealand health care systems to suffer:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/medicines-to-cost-more-and-healthcare-will-suffer-according-to-wikileaks-documents-20150610-ghkxp0.html
And our government is probably going to Fast Track this trade legislation it hasn't even read and thus have to pass it without amendment. So you can't count on them to read anything, they are deliberately speeding up the passage of legislation they aren't even allowed to read! Who believes in speeding up the passage of unread legislation: every single person that votes for trade promotion authority (aka Fast Track)
----
As for whether the Supreme Court will throw out Obamacare, I don't think so, there's too much money in it (for corporations). I could be wrong, but no I don't think so.
Or perhaps the text wasn't 'buggy' but rather the bug was a feature intended to cause exactly the current situation.
Planted by who, and for what purpose?
I would would like to believe, and hope, that none of our elected representatives would plant a vomit tasting easter egg in a big piece of legislation like this to sabotage it setting up exactly the litigation that has unfolded, but it wouldn't especially surprise me if one of the people who has voted many times to repeal the ACA would do something so awful.
Obviously a much more likely scenario is that it was just an ooops that no one caught at the time the bill was being written.
Speaking of vomit flavored easter eggs, the TPP has been drafted with a specific provision ...
"Late Tuesday evening, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin offered up an amendment to a customs bill that would "ensure that trade agreements do not require changes to U.S. law or obligate the United States with respect to global warming or climate change."
I'm not really sure what it means, all I can see is non-accountable parties continuing business as usual. >:(
"The language is just to ensure that the trade deal is not a vehicle to minimize congressional involvement in a future international agreement on climate change," Bart Forsyth, a spokesman for Rep. Sensenbrenner explained.
What? You're putting a loophole in this deal, to make sure we fully participate in a future international agreement about the very thing the loophole avoids? And how does THAT work, exactly? What a gigantic load of bullsh!t, they didn't even have time to cook up a faintly logical excuse.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/trade-tpp-climate-change-paul-ryan-20150610
ApatheticNoMore
6-12-15, 11:52am
It's strange because I don't think anyone thought that most of the trade agreements would be good for the climate/environment anyway, they are bills that the people don't have access to, that congress barely has access to, and that many big corporations have complete access to, what's the chances they are about environmental protections? Besides that parts that wikileaks have leaked on the TPP show how unenforceable the environmental protections are. Although since few know 100% what's in it there might have been something about climate change in it, I'd think given who wrote it there wouldn't be, but I can't prove it. It could also prevent future bills that do deal with the environment via trade legislation if some were to come into existence.
"The language is just to ensure that the trade deal is not a vehicle to minimize congressional involvement in a future international agreement on climate change," Bart Forsyth, a spokesman for Rep. Sensenbrenner explained.
they mean they want congress to be able to veto any possible global climate change provisions if they ever make themselves into trade treaties.
It could very well just be pandering to the base (who might otherwise wonder why the Rs are all lining up to sign on to Obama's trade agreement if they really think the parties are so opposed), but it's the kind of pandering that might risk losing the rest of the world that cares more about climate change. I really hope it does, these agreements need to go down in flames.
ANM, yes ... I thought the whole thing was very strange ... it never would have occurred to me to link climate concerns to this bill, at least not in this specific way. I almost feel as if this is a way of getting the bill sunk by republican politicians without damaging their constituent base, because it's stirring up a hornet's nest of people who weren't that upset before. And whether they wish it sunk because it's Obama's bill or because they actually oppose it or the rush and secrecy around it, I don't care, as long as it sinks. As far as I'm concerned, it's another strong arm tactic: we'll inundate with so much info that no one can understand and then push it through at the speed of light. OR, hey here's an idea, our politicos actually grow some balls and say no. This isn't a trial where litigants can drown each other in paperwork and a verdict MUST nevertheless be reached, no one has to make a decision other than "go away".
gimmethesimplelife
6-12-15, 2:44pm
Good news.....Fast tracking of this trade bill failed.....the Democratic Party itself delivered the blow to Obama. I'm so glad and I will admit here and now I think less of Obama for so aggressively going after getting this new trade bill passed. Let's hope it continues to die as it is attempted to be pushed through yet again and again. Rob
Gardenarian
6-12-15, 5:27pm
Good news.....Fast tracking of this trade bill failed.....the Democratic Party itself delivered the blow to Obama. I'm so glad and I will admit here and now I think less of Obama for so aggressively going after getting this new trade bill passed. Let's hope it continues to die as it is attempted to be pushed through yet again and again. Rob
+1
ApatheticNoMore
6-18-15, 3:02am
Good news.....Fast tracking of this trade bill failed.....the Democratic Party itself delivered the blow to Obama. I'm so glad and I will admit here and now I think less of Obama for so aggressively going after getting this new trade bill passed. Let's hope it continues to die as it is attempted to be pushed through yet again and again. Rob
fast track will be attempted to be pushed through the House again today. :(
flowerseverywhere
6-18-15, 9:35am
Has anyone written their representatives or called their offices? You need a barrage of phone calls, letters and emails to come close to making any dent against the lobbyists. If you have not, time to do so and get everyone you know to start doing the same.
Has anyone written their representatives or called their offices? You need a barrage of phone calls, letters and emails to come close to making any dent against the lobbyists. If you have not, time to do so and get everyone you know to start doing the same.
I didn't need to. My rep is already in favor of fast track.
Fast track would seem to take away the senate's cinstitutiinal duty to advise the president on treaties, leaving inly the abllity to consent to them.
Fast track would seem to take away the senate's cinstitutiinal duty to advise the president on treaties, leaving inly the abllity to consent to them.This administration hasn't been shy about its desire to bypass Congress at every turn.
Looks like fast track (narrowly) passed the House today. What changed from the previous vote?
Looks like fast track (narrowly) passed the House today. What changed from the previous vote?They took out the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bits. It seems that on the first vote, when the TAA was included, lots of Democrats voted against the bill in order to save TAA, or something to that effect. I frankly don't understand the circular logic in that one..... Once it was removed, some of the dissenters got on board.
They took out the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bits. It seems that on the first vote, when the TAA was included, lots of Democrats voted against the bill in order to save TAA, or something to that effect. I frankly don't understand the circular logic in that one..... Once it was removed, some of the dissenters got on board.
The ways of politics are passing strange.
ApatheticNoMore
6-18-15, 3:38pm
It is my understanding that Fast Track passed the House on the original vote a week ago. The claim it failed the original vote (claimed in this thread I mean) was a partial truth. It actually PASSED the original vote. However, in the original vote it was set up as a package deal with the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill (TAA) and TAA failed, perhaps because some people were using it to undermine Fast Track (if all 3 bills I think there were (maybe the customs bill was the other one) have to pass for the whole thing to pass, undermining 1 out of 3 is an effective strategy of course).
When it came up for revote it was not a package deal. It was just Fast Track itself without TAA yes or no. Some votes also switched. The interesting questions are 1) whose vote switched since the last Fast Track vote 2) who who voted against the TAA and thus undermined the package deal, voted for a plain Fast Track bill?
The whole thing has been puzzling. The President had always struck me as hostile to such trade deals in the past, and Mrs. Clinton seemed to generally favor them. The roles seemed to reverse this time.
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