[NeedKarma]

Your knees still jerking I see.

I don't even know what that means. Can you explain it?

[speechlesstx]

I don't even know what that means. Can you explain it?

Figure it out.

[NeedKarma]

Figure it out.

Ah so you don't know either the words that you type.

[excon]

Your knees still jerking I see.

Hello again, Steve:

If we LOOKED for righty's who make you look bad, they're all over the place. NK brings up only the most recent. I don't know why you think your finding a dingbat is news, but if we found one, our knees are jerking...

I think you're being one way, old Steve. That ain't right.

excon

[speechlesstx]

If we LOOKED for righty's who make you look bad, they're all over the place.

If I were LOOKING for lefties to make them look bad that would be no challenge either, but I'm not looking for any such thing. Al just happened to be in the news this morning as in "current events" on the subject we're discussing.

And, if I were echoing "Tea Party-Type hyperbole" he might have a point, but I expressed my opinion based on my observations using my own words from my own original thoughts.

NK is jumping to conclusions, making assumptions, reacting without regard to fact, i.e. his knees are jerking.

[speechlesstx]

Ah so you don't know either the words that you type.

When you can tell me I've used it wrong you may have a point.

[NeedKarma]

NK is jumping to conclusions, making assumptions, reacting without regard to fact, i.e. his knees are jerking.

How does that apply here where you used it: https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/2284417-post140.html

You used Al Sharpton as an example and I told you that we could use the teabaggers as the same type of example. The only jerking I see here is the conservative ranting circlejerk.

[paraclete]

We do, we have universal health care. :)

But seriously: World's Fattest Countries - Forbes.com
You = 9th, us = 35th

I see the US is right up there with the poorest countries in the world, If I didn't know better I would think there is a correlation between obesity and wealth.

[galveston]

I can remember when LBJ & crew forced all the seniors to drop their private insurance and go on medicare. It will be better for you, they said. Premiums will be lower, they said, and they were, for a while.

Now, 50 years later, the budget for Medicare is merely 8 times what the government figures said it would be now.

With what is being touted as the bill for this health crash program, just multiply they by 8 or 10 to see what it will really cost.

How long can we continue to borrow money to pay interest on the national debt?

And when, (not if) our economy fails as did that of the USSR, it will surely bring down the economies of the rest of the industralized world.

Talk about chaos!

That's when the 4 horsemen of the Book of Revelation will ride.

The world bankers have finally set up a doomsday financial machine that will bring war, famine, and global death on a massive scale.

They will be caught in it as well as everyone else.

(Hey, my guesses are as accurate as anyone else's.)

[inthebox]

Do the Markets Love the Health Care Revamp? - MarketBeat - WSJ

Despite all the warnings of a government takeover and socialism in the healthcare sector, I think this bill is actually good thing for big healthcare / pharma corporations. Surely they had enough money to 1] eliminate the public option, which I am not in favor anyhow, 2] and enough political clout to write, and I have not read this 2000 page bill, provisions that favor them.
Forced new customers, whom they can cherry pick the healthiest and leave the sickest and most costly to the taxpayers. Hmmmm privatized profits and socialized risk, déjà vu, ahem... housing bubble and crash. Just lovely.


G&P

[speechlesstx]

It's wonderful that we have such great constitutional minds like John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, looking out for us. He said Obamacare is constitutional under the "good and welfare clause."

Conyers said: “Under several clauses, the good and welfare clause and a couple others. All the scholars, the constitutional scholars that I know -- I’m chairman of the Judiciary committee, as you know -- they all say that there’s nothing unconstitutional in this bill and if there were, I would have tried to correct it if I thought there were.”

Can someone point me to the "good and welfare clause?"

[tomder55]

Of course there is no such thing ;although he is probably referring to the "general welfare clause " which is actually a subtext to the " taxing and spending clause" Article 1 Sec 8 clause 1 .

It is useful to note that when discussing the general welfare clause and if it was a grant of unbridled power to Congress power to Congress James Madison observed that
If not only the means but the objects are unlimited, the parchment [the Constitution] should be thrown into the fire at once. The founders were clear that the specific powers granted Congress in Article One were enumerated ,specific ,and limitted . It did not include a power to force people to buy a service . That is where the law suits should begin.

[parttime]

I think it is useful to note that when discussing the "general welfare clause" would be that the founding fathers thought it important enough to mention twice.

[excon]

Hello Steve:

I don't know what he's talking about, but he's not going to be ruling on the Constitutionality of the issue. The Supreme Court is. Here's what I found. The United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 3, states that the United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes".

It's been used as the basis for laws that tell you what you CAN'T buy. It just seems logical to me, that if the government has the power to tell you what you CAN'T buy, it's a short leap to assume they also have the power to tell you what you MUST buy. The Constitution makes no distinction between which PART of a transaction can be "regulated", and which part can't. In fact, the term "regulate commerce" means exactly that. They have the power to REGULATE commerce. That certainly must include the power to make you buy stuff. No?

Tom has argued that it's good for the government to be able to prevent you from buying stuff like unhealthy meat, untested prescription medications, and all sorts of illegal drugs... I don't disagree. However, laws in this country are Constitutional, NOT because they have a good result. They're legal because the Constitution says so. That's the ONLY guideline we use.

excon

[speechlesstx]

I see no 'individual' mandate whatsoever in that clause. You listed what was specifically enumerated, specific entities, "foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." I don't see Steve's name in there.

[tomder55]

It is useful to note that when Roosevelt got Social Security he argued that it was an insurance plan.But he knew the courts would never buy the argument that people could be forced to buy a service. So Congress jumped through hoops to twist the language in the law. When SS went before the court Roosevelt's lawyers argued that it was not an insurance policy at all ;but instead just another tax. I'm not sure if the courts bought that or not . What I do know is that SCOTUS was intimidated by Roosevelt who had just recently attempted to pack the court ;so they ruled in his favor.

There is nothing in the reading of the commerce clause that would suggest that Congress has the authority to compel every man women and child in the country to purchase a product whether they wanted to or not.
All the cases where the Commerce clause has been used expansively have been in the selling and production of a good and not in the purchase .
Since the consumer is not involved in the production of the product ;the argument that the commerce clause is applicible is a bridge too far.

In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the court upheld a federal law regulating the national wheat markets. The law was drawn so broadly that wheat grown for consumption on individual farms also was regulated. Even though this rule reached purely local (rather than interstate) activity, the court reasoned that the consumption of homegrown wheat by individual farms would, in the aggregate, have a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and so was within Congress's reach.

The court reaffirmed this rationale in 2005 in Gonzales v. Raich, when it validated Congress's authority to regulate the home cultivation of marijuana for personal use. In doing so, however, the justices emphasized that -- as in the wheat case -- "the activities regulated by the [Controlled Substances Act] are quintessentially economic." That simply would not be true with regard to an individual health insurance mandate.

The otherwise uninsured would be required to buy coverage, not because they were even tangentially engaged in the "production, distribution or consumption of commodities," but for no other reason than that people without health insurance exist. The federal government does not have the power to regulate Americans simply because they are there. Significantly, in two key cases, United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000), the Supreme Court specifically rejected the proposition that the commerce clause allowed Congress to regulate noneconomic activities merely because, through a chain of causal effects, they might have an economic impact. These decisions reflect judicial recognition that the commerce clause is not infinitely elastic and that, by enumerating its powers, the framers denied Congress the type of general police power that is freely exercised by the states.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...pinion/columns

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

It's a good argument. I don't know what argument the Dems will come up with. I made that stuff up about the Commerce Clause. I ain't no constitutional lawyer - although I play one on AMHD.

excon

[speechlesstx]

All I know is all this celebrating over this 'victory' is rather unbecoming. Joe "God rest her soul" Biden said this morning "this is a big f---ing deal!" during his celebration.

Just who did the Dems defeat? The American people is who, and they oughtta be damned ashamed for celebrating the defeat of the their own people. That is a big f---ing deal...

[excon]

Hello again, Steve:

In our center left country, lots of people think it IS a big deal.

excon

PS> You keep on saying we're center right, but you lost the elections of '06. You lost in '08, and you just lost again in '10. Looks pretty center left to me. I'm just saying...

[speechlesstx]

Not surprisingly you missed the point. Every indicator showed the American people opposed this legislation. The Dems defeated not the Republicans, but the American people and now they're celebrating that 'victory.'

And if we're 'center left' you'd think Obama would be over 46%, Pelosi would be over 11% and Harry Reid would be over 8% in their approval ratings.