Which is why this won’t stand. John Roberts is a slavering lackey for Big Everything.
Roberts and Kennedy will vote to affirm the Fourth Circuit’s reasoned decision, the Three Stooges will write some hyperconservative abortion of a ruling, and Cruz & Co will already have moved on to the next Outrage.
“The Affordable Care Act is working pretty much as intended, and real people are benefiting, so Republicans are obliged to try and impose unnecessary suffering on their constituents so that they’ll demand repeal”
Anyone else see the problem with the logic in that? Just in case you haven’t finished your morning coffee, I will spell it out.
People won’t demand repeal…they will demand that Congress add two freaking words to the bill and fix the damn thing. The toothpaste is already out of the tube, people on both sides of the aisle are enjoying the benefits provided by ACA. There is no way republicans are ever going to be able to put that paste back in the tube now.
Their only recourse would be to provide even better benefits to replace ACA. And that is something they cannot do.
My guess is that Roberts will want to avoid even hearing this case, if at all possible. The DC Circuits ruling reads like a bad parody and Roberts is going to be loathe to go down that path, especially given the pressure the right wing will bring to bear on him.
The full DC Court reverses the decision, and the Court refuses to grant cert…essentially letting the 4th Circuits decision be the valid one. No hands dirty.
is there any doubt that SCOTUS will take this up and which way the roberts court will rule…
the gop is more like a rabid animal than a compassionate human being.
The decision on Halbig was predictable, given the makeup of that particular collection of judges. The Republican Party’s reaction was predictable, given their established hatred of the ACA. It would have been remarkable if they responded differently.
What I’m most interested in is the reaction of the Democratic Party, especially those alleged political geniuses in the DNC. Do they have the brains, the balls, and the inclination to go after the GOP hammer and tongs on this? Are they already planning their coordinated messaging and PR campaigns? Are they ready to attack?
Or will they do what they usually do—whine, wring their hands, squeal “for shame, for shame” like a helpless schoolmarm facing a class of unruly 10-year olds, issue a strongly-worded press release indicating how miffed they are at the Republican meanies, and then return to their habitual defensive crouch?
I’m not holding my breath.
Nice picture choice.
Is Cruz’s PR guy paying TPM to mention Cruz as often as possible?
If he is, he’s incompetent. Ted Cruz is one of the ugliest, most visually repulsive Republican politicians since Richard Nixon, and it’s a rare photo of him that doesn’t highlight that fact.
And yet TPM pimps him at every possible opportunity.
TPM points out repeatedly what an un-American asshole Ted Cruz (R-Canada) really is.
The Republicans frequently remind me of the sailors on the USS Texas at the Battle of Santiago, in 1898. When one of the Spanish ships caught fire, the Americans cheered (an all too normal reaction in the circumstances). Capt. Phillip, who was a devout Christian, called out, “Don’t cheer, boys. The poor devils are dying.”
They give him continual free press.
Cruz isn’t even specifically mentioned in this story. Walker is.
I am astounded that I have not yet had a fundraising email from the DNC, DSCC or DCCC based on the Halbig decision. What an opportunity for Democrats! Millions of Americans will either pay hundreds of dollars a month more or lose their health insurance–and most of them are in Republican states. Yet Congress could enact a simple change to ACA and avoid the problem. Democrats should be all over this, every day, until November 2016.
It wouldn’t even take a paragraph to make these suits moot. All you need is to delete the words “by the states” from the current text. Or add “or federal government”. Three whole words.
But the GOP would rather raise taxes by tens of billions of dollars a year on working class families.
It’s the Republican’s version of Human Shield
“The Affordable Care Act is working pretty much as intended, and real people are benefiting, so Republicans are obliged to try and impose unnecessary suffering on their constituents so that they’ll demand repeal.”
This sums up TPGOP tactics perfectly.
Hardly surprising… the DNC chair is Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. While she might be an OK congressperson, as the leading figure dealing with the electoral direction of the Democratic Party, she’s a useless hack of the first order.
The GOP would rather be right (“see, the law is a failure”), than do the right thing (“we were wrong, this is actually working and helping people”).
Disgusting.
Another case of the end justifying the means or as Justice Frankfurter pithily said we often come out of a case based on how we came into the case.
Great article TPM! Very well written thought provoking, thanks for the red meat!!
Wrong 20th century European totalitarian party. The GOP’s tactics over the last two decades are actually more comparable to those of a certain other one-party hyper-nationalistic statist movement of the 20s and 30s. Although it was openly contemptuous of democracy, and made no secret of its intent to destroy it, it participated in elections and sought seats in the national and state legislatures and then used whatever power it gained to make things worse. Making things worse, using its parliamentary seats to block action and undermine the government’s ability to govern, was an overt objective. It sewed hatred and fear with its private propaganda organs, supported paramilitary goon squads and generally sought to use all means possible to render the country ungovernable, to sew chaos and discord and create a sense of crisis among the voters that would lead them to yearn for authoritarian rule, if only to obtain some peace and order.
And boy oh boy did they hate them some Bolsheviks.