A Little Audacity Goes A Long Way: Immigration Reform and the Folly of Bipartisanship

David Brooks and other delusional stalwarts of the pundit class continue to believe that the Republican Party cares about governing and is capable of compromise.  Ignoring GOP efforts since the dawn of the Obama Administration to thwart every moderate proposal supported by the White House, they are excoriating the President for finally eschewing attempts at illusory bipartisanship for the sake of having a direct, positive impact on millions of people.

President Obama's executive order will allow "four million undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years to apply for a program that protects them from deportation and allows those with no criminal record to work legally in the country."  Another "one million people will get protection from deportation through other parts of the president’s plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration enforcement system, including the expansion of an existing program for “Dreamers,” young immigrants who came to the United States as children."  (Of course, it wouldn't be an Obama plan without some compromise -- so, farm workers won't receive special protection and there will be no federal subsidies for health care.)

The predictable response, not just from the rabid right, but from the pointless middle, is outrage and disappointment that Obama won't give Republicans a chance to act decently.  According to Brooks, "White House officials are often misinformed on what Republicans are privately discussing, so they don’t understand that many in the Republican Party are trying to find a way to get immigration reform out of the way."  Sure.

Remarkably, neither he nor anyone else seems to recall that a bipartisan immigration bill overwhelmingly passed the Senate in the summer of 2013.  It was scuttled in the House, where the Speaker refused to bring it up for a vote, knowing that the nativists in his Party would reject it because of its provision of a path to citizenship.  Although, according to David Brooks, this was really because they were working on their own secret plan. 

Notwithstanding that prior presidents acted unilaterally on immigration (including Reagan and both Bushes), and that Obama's executive order has been sanctioned by conservative legal scholars, Republicans are now threatening to either shut down the government or initiate impeachment proceedings over Obama's move. At minimum, according to Brooks, "Republicans would rightly take it as a calculated insult and yet more political ineptitude. Everybody would go into warfare mode. We’ll get two more years of dysfunction that will further arouse public disgust and antigovernment fervor." 

Thus, the groundwork has been laid to further blame Obama and the Democrats for gridlock despite the unprecedented recalcitrance of the Republicans who -- according to Brooks and others -- are ready to make nice, roll up their sleeves and govern responsibly if only Obama would meet them half way.  So, in addition to that secret immigration plan that Republicans have been working on that surely would have helped millions of immigrants remain in this country, they are also working on a secret health care plan that could replace Obamacare after they repeal it and provide tens of millions with health care as Obamacare has done.  And, they must also have a secret plan to combat climate change all teed up, as soon as they approve the Keystone XL pipeline and thwart the historic pact over carbon emissions that Obama made with China.

President Obama is going to have to tamp down his instincts towards compromise and moderation these next two years while Republicans block judicial and administrative nominations, attempt to deregulate Wall Street and the EPA, and pass unconscionable bills aimed at gutting the safety net and getting the government out of the way of Big Business.  This will be increasingly difficult in the face of cries from the mainstream media (and moderate Democrats) who believe that bipartisanship is a worthy end in itself.  But what is worthy is ensuring that 5 million immigrants will not be deported and separated from their families and their homes; that at least 10 million people have health insurance that they did not have before; that carbon emissions are reduced.  Given the extremist state of the Republican Party none of this could happen by compromise -- it could only happen by exercising a little audacity.

Assaulting Democracy Instead of the Democrats May Be Too Radical For Prime Time

Dukakis' Assault on the White House

The lunatic wing of the lunatic party has taken over Washington, D.C. 

As Dan Froomkin puts it: "holding the entire government hostage while demanding the de facto repeal of a president's signature legislation and not even bothering to negotiate is by any reasonable standard an extreme political act." 

This may be historically unprecedented, but James Fallows warned us to be on the look out for false equivalence in the media:  "As a matter of journalism, any story that presents the disagreements as a 'standoff,' a 'showdown,' a 'failure of leadership,' a sign of 'partisan gridlock,' or any of the other usual terms for political disagreement, represents a failure of journalism and an inability to see or describe what is going on."  Because "this isn't 'gridlock.' It is a ferocious struggle within one party, between its traditionalists and its radical factions, with results that unfortunately can harm all the rest of us -- and, should there be a debt default, could harm the rest of the world too."

Unsurprisingly, the initial reporting failed Fallows' False Equivalence Test, and would lead one to believe that this was simply business as usual in the Beltway.  No one is at fault because both sides do it.  Republican lies are just one side of the "he said, she said" style of reporting.  Indeed, Chuck Todd, the posterchild for the traditional media, admitted it that he did not believe it was the media's job to correct the Republican lies -- its the President's job.

At first, the media appeared unable to tell the truth if it meant siding with one political party over the other or as Froomkin describes it, "the political media's aversion to doing anything that might be seen as taking sides — combined with its obsession with process — led them to actively obscure the truth in their coverage of the votes. If you did not already know what this was all about, reading the news would not help you understand."

Joshua Holland aptly described journalists as "frogs in the proverbial pot . . . slowly acclimat[ing] to these extreme, democracy-suffocating circumstances and now seem incapable of describing what’s they’re seeing. Framing everything as a standard-issue partisan fight is almost a professional imperative for many journalists."

So, Joe Nocera, from his perch at the New York Times, points out that, sure, the Republicans have Ted Cruz, but the Democrats used to have their own radicals, like Mike Dukakis.  How's that for false equivalence?  (Rick Perlstein takes on this maddening nonsense)

The consequence of years of this kind of failed journalism, as Froomkin points out, is more extremism: 

When the media coverage seeks down-the-middle neutrality despite one party's outlandish conduct, there are no political consequences for their actions. With no consequences for extremism, politicians who have succeeded using such conduct have an incentive to become even more extreme. The more extreme they get, the further the split-the-difference press has to veer from common sense in order to avoid taking sides. And so on.

The Democratic Party has usually been complicit in this dynamic by trying to appear reasonable and open to compromise no matter how obstructionist the other side is being.  But, with Obama and the Democrats remaining unified and refusing to cave to the craziness (at least for now), while the Republicans appear beholden to the wackiest in their party, there appear to be some cracks in the media's knee-jerk neutrality. (The fact that Wall Street is getting nervous helps too)

Even Thomas Friedman, wanker extraordinaire, who always seems to hope for some moderate leadership to bridge the divide between left and right -- has finally seen the light:  "What is at stake in this government shutdown forced by a radical Tea Party minority is nothing less than the principle upon which our democracy is based: majority rule. President Obama must not give in to this hostage taking — not just because Obamacare is at stake, but because the future of how we govern ourselves is at stake."

Editorial pages of newspapers around the country are taking note, blaming the Republican Party for shutting down the government, undermining democracy and threatening the health of the economy. 

The Washington Post, the establishment's establishment paper, a few days ago argued, in a both-sides do it editorial entitled "U.S. Congress’s dereliction of leadership on government shutdown" that "the grown-ups in the room will have to do their jobs, which in a democracy with divided government means compromising for the common good" has come around.  Now its: "House Republicans are failing Americans in their effort to kill Obamacare," calling Republican's actions "beyond the pale" and demanding that they "fulfill their basic duties to the American people or make way for legislators who will." 

What a difference a few days make.  The Republicans have launched an assault on Democracy not the Democratic Party.  Have they finally gone too far?

At Least Those Supreme Court Conservatives Aren't Influenced By The New York Times

Clarence and Virginia Thomas

After the theory that Chief Justice Roberts' vote to uphold ACA was caused by his epilepsy medication didn't fly, the latest conservative narrative making the rounds (thanks to a "scoop" by CBS's Jan Crawford) is that Roberts switched his vote, buckling to external political pressure, and then withstood a ferocious month-long campaign by Justice Kennedy to bring him back around. 

Who knows what truth there is to this story (or who inside the Court leaked it), but I was particularly struck by a remarkable nugget in Crawford's article which describes the conservative wing of the Court, in contrast to Chief Justice Roberts, as impervious to outside influences -- or at least liberal ones.  Thus, while Roberts "pays attention to media coverage," the conservatives, "such as Justice Clarence Thomas, deliberately avoid news articles on the court when issues are pending (and avoid some publications altogether, such as The New York Times). They've explained that they don't want to be influenced by outside opinion or feel pressure from outlets that are perceived as liberal."

What the article left out are the right-wing influences on Justices Thomas, Scalia and Alito.  As I've previously written, these three justices have attended, headlined and spoken at political fund-raising events for right wing organizations.   In another piece, Activist Judges, I pointed out that Justice Alito attended a major fundraising event for the notorious right wing magazine American Spectator (notorious for smearing President Clinton with false stories as part of the "Arkansas Project," an effort to get Clinton impeached), and that Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas have also attended secret political fundraisers.

And as stated here, Scalia and Thomas were featured guests at a retreat of wealthy Republicans and conservative leaders organized by Charles and David Koch, the brothers who finance right wing causes from the money they made from their energy conglomerate.  One of the Koch brothers pet causes had long been ending financial regulations on elections.  Indeed, according to Common Cause, they funded many of the groups who filed amicus briefs in the Citizens United case.  What is so unseemly about the appearances of Thomas and Scalia at the Koch Industries-sponsored event is that it occurred while Citizens United was pending before the Court.

And then, of course, there is the influence of Justice Thomas's wife, Ginni Thomas, a right-wing activist and powerful lobbyist, who worked to repeal the health care law.  Thomas was employed by the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank, between 2003 and 2007, and then set up a political consulting business, Liberty Central, which is described as an advocate for “liberty-loving citizens" fighting against the left wing "tyranny" of President Obama and the Democrats.

Well, at least the conservative members of the Court are not influenced by the New York Times and other dreaded liberal media.

If Pre-Existing Conditions Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Pre-Existing Conditions

Tom Tomorrow's latest:  Health Care Glossary Updated

Click here (or on the Read Tom Tomorrow link on the right panel) for the full comic.

Supreme Court Politics

DonkeyHotey

It was a big -- and telling -- day at the high court even without the highly anticipated Affordable Care Act decision, which is now expected to be issued on Thursday.  As I wrote earlier, Justice Scalia's raving dissent about state sovereignty in the Arizona immigration case starkly illustrates that he is more of a political operative than an impartial judge.

And, not surprisingly, Scalia's obeisance to states' rights was nowhere in evidence in another case decided today, a case in which a 5-4  majority struck down Montana’s 100-year-old anti-corruption law banning corporate spending on elections without ever hearing arguments in the case.  As Nicole Flatow at American Constitution Society summarized:  "Although Montana’s law was intended to combat corruption in election spending, the five-justice majority held in a paragraph-long decision that this case was controlled by Citizens United, which found that independent expenditures by corporations 'do not give rise to corruption.'” 

Flatow points out that, "A supermajority of Montanans thought otherwise when they passed the Corrupt Practices Act in 1912," and as Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his dissent, “Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the Court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the Court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so.”
 
Breyer's dissent, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor, pointedly concluded as follows:

Were the matter up to me, I would vote to grant the petition for certiorari in order to reconsider Citizens United or, at least, its application in this case. But given the Court’s per curiam disposition, I do not see a significant possibility of reconsideration. Consequently, I vote instead to deny the petition. 

And there you have it.  As Amy Davidson notes, "Breyer is saying that he does not trust the majority enough to even listen, and would rather that it not hear the case at all; since he was joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, that means the four of them didn’t believe that a single of the other five Justices had been at all chastened by the consequences of Citizens United."

And so, E.J. Dionne pleads:

Will everyone please finally admit conservatives actually don’t care a whit about states’ rights unless invoking states’ rights happens to be helpful to the conservative agenda? Conservatives on the court have become complete and utter hypocrites on the matter of what states can and can’t do.

This has stuck in my craw for a long time. Recall that the Supreme Court had absolutely no qualms about telling the state of Florida in 2000 that there was no way it could recount its votes in a fashion that would be satisfactory, and never mind that the Florida Supreme Court had ruled in favor of recounts. Those recounts might have gotten in the way of George W. Bush’s elevation to the presidency. Face it: If states’ rights are inconvenient to the outcome conservatives want, conservative justices will find a way to supersede them.

James Fallows recently wrote with regard to the Affordable Care Act case that "confidence in the very idea that the Roberts majority will approach this as a "normal" legal matter, rather than as one more Bush v. Gore front in the political wars, grows ever harder to maintain."

Which leads Ed Kilgore to draws what to me is the most critical lesson, whatever happens with the health care decision:

But it’s becoming more obvious each day that the judicial counter-revolutionaries of the Supreme Court don’t need the crisis atmosphere that they used to justify Bush v. Gore to continue its legacy. Indeed, it seems to have become the only precedent the majority reliably respects. Maybe they will surprise us all on Thursday and step back from the brink. But without question, if another seat on the Court falls their way, the constitutional substructure of every 20th century social accomplishment from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Act to the Clean Air Act to the right to an abortion is in immediate danger. And anyone who remembers that strange night in 2000 when the Court’s Republican appointees decided to seize the opportunity to choose a president should not be surprised.

Justice Scalia: The Opportunistic Originalist

By Jeremy Leaming, cross-posted from American Constitution Society

DonkeyHotey

We likely shouldn’t be surprised by Justice Antonin Scalia’s “flip-flop,” as TPM puts it, on precedent supporting modern understanding of the Constitution’s commerce clause.

TPM’s Sahil Kapur reports that in his forthcoming book, Scalia says the Supreme Court’s 1942 opinion in Wickard v. Filburn wrongly construed the scope of the commerce clause. As Kapur and many others have noted, including the Obama administration, Scalia cited Wickard in a 2005 opinion concluding that a law barring personal cultivation of marijuana for medical use was not beyond the scope of the commerce clause.

In that case, Gonzales v. Raich, Scalia lodged a concurring opinion, citing precedent in holding, “where Congress has the authority to enact a regulation of interstate commerce, ‘it possesses every power needed to make that regulation effective.’”

In an e-mail to TPM, constitutional law expert Adam Winkler wrote, “This is typical Scalia.”

Winkler, a law professor at UCLA, continued:

He respects precedents when they fit his conservative ideology and disregards them when they don’t. He claims that history should guide judges. But nothing about the history of the commerce clause has changed. What’s changed is the political implications of the commerce clause. When it’s being invoked for law and order conservatives, he favors Wickard. When invoked by liberals to support healthcare reform, he thinks Wickard is bad law.
Once again, we see that Scalia’s orginalism is a charade.

There is also the spectacle of oral argument, where Scalia not only revealed a wobbly understanding of the health care insurance system but affinity for the simplistic, but radically libertarian arguments lobbed against the Affordable Care Act’s minimum coverage provision. The minimum coverage provision is integral to the health care reform law, requiring those who can afford to do so to obtain a minimum amount of the health care coverage starting in 2014.

The provision was quickly attacked by the Right as a dire threat to liberty. If the government were able to require many indiviuals to purchase health care insurance, then surely it could also force individuals to buy broccoli and gym memberships, the law’s opponents argued.

Socialism: A GOP Plan Signed By Obama

By Tina Dupuy, cross-posted from her website

Calling ObamaCare “socialized medicine” truly lowers the standards on what could be considered socialized medicine. It’s like calling paved roads “government overreach”; a stop light a “government takeover of your commute”; or a neighborhood with speed bumps “a road to communism.” The law is really some regulations to help consumers buy private insurance coupled with a small fee if consumers decide not to buy said insurance.

Is it perfect? No. Could it be improved? Absolutely. However, ObamaCare is the opposite of socialism, it’s a market solution.

The right-wing got a “free” market solution to health care. That was their cause – personal responsibility their mantra – now it’s law. They got an entire reform bill incentivising citizens to buy into private for-profit insurance plans. This is the Republican vision for America: Less government more profits for giant corporations. This core of the Affordable Care Act was an idea floated by President Nixon in 1974, touted by the Heritage Foundation in 1989, introduced by Newt Gingrich in 1993 and implemented by Mitt Romney in 2005. And now? Now it’s a big festering albatross around Obama’s neck.

As former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said in front of the Supreme Court last week, “We have not waved the white flag of surrender on socialized medicine!”

So the decades-old Republican big idea finally gets Democratic presidential ink and now, if you ask a Republican, it’s an unconstitutional government takeover of health care Stalin would have loved. Mitt Romney wants to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with RomneyCare. Essentially repealing the Affordable Care Act with the Affordable Care Act. Leave it to a Republican frontrunner to vow their first act as president will be to waste time with redundancies while lamenting how ineffective government can be.

Now health care reform has reached the Supreme Court, we will have a ruling on the law in late June. Will it be overturned fully or partially or upheld? It’s anyone’s guess.
Regardless of the outcome, personal responsibility in health care is a Republican pet idea they’ve strapped to the roof of the car.

It makes the case that their ideas should never be law because if partisanship beckons, they’ll rally against them and call any Democrats who signed the bill, Hitler.

Imagine if Obama signed the most recent Paul Ryan Budget plan – a blueprint to cut taxes further for the wealthy and further increase the debt by not taking in enough revenues. If Obama embraced it, Republicans would storm the Capitol calling it a tax hike and a Maoist plot with Wall Street. People in tri-corner hats with signs reading, “Don’t raise my taxes!” and “Stop government takeover of business!” would swarm The Mall. The erosion of Medicare would make Republicans faint on the House floor. “It’s a tenet of Marxism to kill grandma!” They’d gasp.

Just remember, when George W. Bush took office the budget was set to be balanced in a few short years. Social security was actually its namesake – secure. And then he went uber-GOP-with-a-mandate – didn’t pay for any of the wars he started – just showered seniors with unpaid-for Medicare Part D and sent everyone in the country a rebate check. And when this “free market capitalism” failed? He bailed out the banks and the auto industry with taxpayer money, famously saying he “abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.”

Now? Now the Republicans blame the deficit, the debt, the recession, the bailouts and (wait for it) the wars on the Democrat in the Oval Office.

It’s a take on the Pottery Barn rule, “You break it, you buy it.” The Republican version: “We break it, we blame you … and call you a Nazi.”

Quote Of The Day

“Ultimately I’m confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.  And I just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. An unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident this court will recognize that and not take that step.”

President Barack Obama, Rose Garden press conference

Quote Of The Day

"The limit is the Constitution." 

Akhil Reed Amar, from Ezra Klein's Wonkblog

Amar, a Yale law professor, goes on to say:  "The most important limit, the one we fought the Revolutionary War for, is that the people doing this to you are the people you elect. That’s the main check. The broccoli argument is like something they said when we were debating the income tax: If they can tax me, they can tax me at 100 percent! And yes, they can. But they won’t. Because you could vote them out of office. They have the power to do all sorts of ridiculous things that they won’t do because you’d vote them out of office."

Justice Scalia Shills For The Tea Party

There has always appeared to be a consensus in mainstream circles, if not necessarily in the legal community, that whether you agreed with him or not, Justice Antonin Scalia possesses a great legal mind.  His performance during the arguments this week on the Affordable Care Act case was therefore striking for the way he often parroted Tea Party talking points.

Talking Points Memo provides the top five GOP Buzzwords echoed by the Supreme Court Justice:

‘Broccoli’

One of the GOP’s favorite talking points about the individual mandate, which a conservative lower court judge also invoked, is that it could open the door to Congress mandating that people eat broccoli.
“Could you define the market — everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food,” Scalia said, discussing a hypothetical. “Therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli.”  He added, “Does that expand your ability to, to issue mandates to the people?”

‘Exercise’

On a similar note, Republicans have warned that letting Congress require an affirmative act could lead to forced exercise in order to keep people healthy. Scalia made that point, too.
“Everybody has to exercise, because there’s no doubt that lack of exercise causes illness, and that causes health care costs to go up,” he said. “So the Federal government says everybody has to join an exercise club.”

‘Cornhusker Kickback’

During Wednesday’s arguments about how closely linked all the provisions of the law are, Scalia twice echoed a catchphrase devised by Republicans to mock a special Medicaid deal Senate leaders offered Ben Nelson (D-NE) to win his vote.
“If we struck down nothing in this legislation but the — what’s it called, the Cornhusker kickback, okay, we find that to violate the constitutional proscription of venality, okay?” the justice said. “When we strike that down, it’s clear that Congress would not have passed it without that. It was the means of getting the last necessary vote in the Senate. And you are telling us that the whole statute would fall because the Cornhusker kickback is bad. That can’t be right.”
Obscured in Scalia’s remark is that the deal was stripped out of the statute around the time of enactment — a fact that hasn’t stopped Republicans from railing against it over the last two years.

‘2,700 Pages’

Discussing what parts of the bill could be “severed” from the mandate, Scalia said: “Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the 8th Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?” There were laughs in the chamber. “Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?”
The 8th Amendment is the part of the Constitution that prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment” — the length of the bill is a running joke among Republicans, who often invoke the 2,700 figure, to argue that nobody could reasonably be expected to read it.

‘10th Amendment’

“I mean, the 10th Amendment says the powers not given to the Federal Government are reserved, not just to the States, but to the States and the people,” Scalia said Tuesday, arguing that the court has held certain laws “reasonably adapted” but not “proper” because they “violated the sovereignty of the States, which was implicit in the constitutional structure.”
The 10th Amendment argument is a common line of attack by Republicans, including Mitt Romney, invoked to argue that ‘Obamacare’ tramples states rights. And though the states challenging the law claim the Medicaid expansion violates the 10th Amendment, Scalia cited it in reference to the individual mandate.
Scalia’s argument is particularly noteworthy because the justice greatly disappointed 10th Amendment advocates in his 2005 Gonzalez v. Raich decision, concurring with the court’s liberals to say Congress may override a state law permitting licensed medical marijuana patients to grow cannabis for personal, non-commercial use.

The Supreme Court Trauma Center

By DonkeyHotey

Health Care Jujitsu

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his website

Not surprisingly, today’s debut Supreme Court argument over the so-called “individual mandate” requiring everyone to buy health insurance revolved around epistemological niceties such as the meaning of a “tax,” and the question of whether the issue is ripe for review.

Behind this judicial foreplay is the brute political fact that if the Court decides the individual mandate is an unconstitutional extension of federal authority, the entire law starts unraveling.

But with a bit of political jujitsu, the President could turn any such defeat into a victory for a single-payer healthcare system – Medicare for all.

Here’s how.

The dilemma at the heart of the new law is that it continues to depend on private health insurers, who have to make a profit or at least pay all their costs including marketing and advertising.

Yet the only way private insurers can afford to cover everyone with pre-existing health problems, as the new law requires, is to have every American buy health insurance – including young and healthier people who are unlikely to rack up large healthcare costs.

This dilemma is the product of political compromise. You’ll remember the Administration couldn’t get the votes for a single-payer system such as Medicare for all. It hardly tried. Not a single Republican would even agree to a bill giving Americans the option of buying into it.

But don’t expect the Supreme Court to address this dilemma. It lies buried under an avalanche of constitutional argument.

Those who are defending the law in Court say the federal government has authority to compel Americans to buy health insurance under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which gives Washington the power to regulate interstate commerce. They argue our sprawling health insurance system surely extends beyond an individual state.

Those who are opposing the law say a requirement that individuals contract with private insurance companies isn’t regulation of interstate commerce. It’s coercion of individuals.

Unhappily for Obama and the Democrats, most Americans don’t seem to like the individual mandate very much anyway. Many on the political right believe it a threat to individual liberty. Many on the left object to being required to buy something from a private company.

The President and the Democrats could have avoided this dilemma in the first place if they’d insisted on Medicare for all, or at least a public option.

A Progressive Budget Or The Ryan Plan: American Dream Or American Nightmare

 Who Pays The Bill For Wall Street's Mess?

By Robert Borosage, cross-posted from Campaign For America's Future

DonkeyHotey

Yesterday, House Republicans rolled out their budget plan in the Washington version of a Hollywood movie opening. There was a star turn for Budget Chair Paul Ryan at a conservative think tank. Gaseous rhetoric -- "liberties endangered, time to choose" -- fouled the air. There were dueling videos, and furious salvos of partisan messaging. And a backup document -- the "Path to Prosperity" -- festooned with tables for wonks to wallow in.

Today, with fewer trumpets and less fanfare, the Congressional Progressive Caucus releases its budget plan -- A Budget for All.

Each of the two documents is designed to define a message. Their contrasts help clarify the real choices the country faces. Federal deficits exploded after Wall Street's excesses blew up the economy. The questions now are who gets the bill and when does the payment start? Ryan's Republican budget and the CPC's offer starkly different answers that would take the country in starkly different directions.

The Bathtub Fantasy

"My goal is to cut government... to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Grover Norquist.

Ryan's Republican budget, like a speedo bathing suit on a corpulent geezer, is revealing, but not flattering. Even by Washington standards, this is a remarkably dishonest document. It claims to be serious, but offers targets that are simply preposterous. It calls for leveling with the American people, but cravenly ducks laying out who will pay for top end tax cuts. It calls itself a "blueprint for American renewal" while systematically trampling the American dream.

Republicans have lined up like lemmings to sign Grover Norquist's infamous pledge never to raise taxes on anyone at any time. But turns out they even treat the quips of the conservative gadfly as gospel. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out, the Ryan budget, by its own numbers, assiduously pursues Grover's bathtub fantasy.

The Congressional Budget Office reports that under the Ryan budget, by 2050 most of the federal government would simply cease to exist. Ryan's budget would shrink all federal expenditures outside of interest payments, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and children's health to 3.75 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

To translate that arcane measure, CBO notes that "spending for defense alone has not been lower than 3 percent of GDP in any year [since World War II]. " Ryan and Republicans call for increasing defense spending -- so the rest of the government would have to be cut to bathtub size. Ryan argues that the "challenges this nation faces are among the largest in its history," but the budget target he offers is, well, goofy.

Two Years Of Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act was signed into law two years ago.  Although it was the product of painful negotiations and compromises, and many of the benefits do not kick in until 2014, the infographic below (courtesy of ThinkProgress) shows "what has already changed for the better and what the Republicans want to repeal":

In Health Care -- Affordability Is Accessibility

By Tina Dupuy, cross-posted from her blog

Conservatives really wanted a fight about religious freedom. It appeared to be an easy win: Make an ObamaCare mandate that insurers cover birth control into a war on religion. The GOP, void of any ideas Obama hasn’t contaminated by agreeing with, finds itself in an election year frantically looking for a bold battle cry. That sweet hot button issue that can excite their party and (hopefully) win them the White House (or maybe the Senate).

Their old standbys have fallen flat: Iran, abortion, climate change, child labor laws, and even gay marriage don’t have the sparkle they once had for the Grand Old Party.

Republicans can’t seem to get excited about Mitt Romney as their ‘80s-teen-movie-smug-rich-guy-stock-character nominee. Worse yet, he’s Mormon, which makes evangelical leaders grumble. So having a common enemy is the best way to bring everyone together for the proverbial good fight: Freedom.

“It’s important for us to win this issue,” Speaker John Boehner told reporters last week. “Our government for 220 years has respected the religious views of the American people and for all of this time there’s been an exception for those churches and other groups to protect the religious beliefs that they believe in. And that’s being violated here.”

Is Boehner coming out against anti-Sharia laws?! Or is he just conveniently forgetting the government isn’t always so deferential to the pious? Mormons had to forsake polygamy to gain statehood, for one. In 1862 the then-General Ulysses S. Grant expelled Jews from his district of Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky. And there were plenty of states where you couldn’t hold public office if you didn’t swear to believe in God (as opposed to Allah, Buddha or a flying plate of spaghetti) until the Torcaso v. Watkins decision in 1961.

This whole charade of religious freedom collapsed under the girth of Rush Limbaugh. He pivoted what was supposed to be a church and state issue into snickering about young women having sex. For three days Limbaugh railed on law student, Sandra Fluke, who testified for congressional Democrats, calling her a prostitute and a slut for speaking in public about the need for birth control coverage. So the GOP was trying to take the high (read: holy) road and there was their mouthpiece driving them all off a cliff demanding Ms. Fluke post sex videos on the Internet.

Now here’s the thing: Even Rick Santorum who (oddly) thinks birth control leads to more teen pregnancies – who has previously said states should have the right to ban contraception – now tells Piers Morgan, “It should be available.” This was tempered with the now irrelevant point about religious freedom. But even the way-out, cringe-inducing, extremist-in-a-sweater-vest has to confess birth control should be available.

Affordability is accessibility. If it’s out of your price range – it’s out of your grasp. It doesn’t matter if the pill is offered over-the-counter or in vending machines – if you can’t afford it – you can’t have it. Fluke’s testimony was not about the legality or morality of contraception – it was about students not being about to shell out over $1,000 a year for a medication in addition to purchasing medical insurance.

If Republicans admit they think birth control should be available – that means they believe it should be within price range.

The conservative talking point on health care reform was summed up by Rep. Virginia Foxx: “There are no Americans who don’t have healthcare,” adding, “Everybody in this country has access to healthcare.” In other words: Everyone has access to cake!

We don’t say everyone accused of a crime has access to a lawyer without providing one. We don’t say everyone has access to police protection but charge more than anyone can pay. We don’t say every child has access to education but require an outrageous tuition. Access is not abstract … unless you’re a Republican lawmaker.

No, when you’re a Republican “access” gets muddied with whatever sham controversy they hope will help them. This week it’s basic health care services for women.

Tina Dupuy, award-winning writer, investigative journalist and managing editor of Crooks and Liars 

Rush Limbaugh: Vile Parrot In The War On Women's Health; But Only One In A Woman-Hating Army

By Meteor Blades, cross-posted from Daily Kos

DonkeyHotey

As the campaign continues to get advertisers and stations to end their relationship with Rush Limbaugh's hate-radio program, it's important to remember exactly what sparked this outcry against the bully from Cape Girardeau. It was not, as the spewmeister repeatedly tried to frame it and even a few progressive critics bought into, the sex life of Sandra Fluke. Because she said exactly zero about that in her testimony before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. Not one word.
What she did say she herself best summed up:

[W]hen you let university administrators or other employers rather than women and their doctors dictate whose medical needs are legitimate and whose are not, women’s health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body.

The issue is equitable coverage of women's reproductive health needs and women's private decisions made together with their physicians about how best to manage their health care versus the demands of politicians and clerics and other busybodies to intervene in private medical matters that are none of their concern.
That Rush Limbaugh and his imitators, emulators and dittoheads have chosen to make it about Sandra Fluke's sex life, about which they know absolutely nothing, about which they should be making no comments whatsoever, epitomizes the war on women they have been running for so very, very long. Fluke is hardly the first woman to feel their boot, their scorn and their slanders. They want to make reproductive health care decisions for women. They want to maintain, or rather, regain the control that women and their allies have worked for decades to put and keep in the hands of women.

In this particular case, it's also well to remember that the guy who makes 6300-times the mininum wage for each of his programs, didn't originate the vicious attack on Fluke. He just used his electronic soapbox to amplify and embellish it. It started with Craig Bannister, the Communications Director of a right-wing outfit, the Conservative News Service (CNS), whose parent entity is the Media Research Center. Founded by Brent Bozell and funded by Exxon-Mobil and right-wing foundations like the Sarah Scaife Foundation and Castle Rock Foundation, the mission is to "balance" the so-called "liberal media."

Craig Bannister's diatribe against Fluke would have never been noticed by anyone who matters had it not been for Limbaugh's need for three more days of sewage (for which he was paid approximately $450,000). But both Bannister and Limbaugh are only two of an army of woman-haters engaged in this warfare.

As we watch the advertisers and stations break off their relationship with Limbaugh, we should never forget that what really generated this unprecedented grass-roots pushback against the attacks on Fluke wasn't just the hateful bleatings of the nation's most overpaid gasbag. Limbaugh's misogyny is not exceptional except in its ability to gain an audience and his willingness to use language others shy away from. It is all part of the long-term, broad-based attack on women's basic rights engaged in by misogynist religious organizations, right-wing funders, the politicians they buy at the local, state and federal levels and Limbaugh wannabes at stations across the nation. He is just the point man.
•••
Send an e-mail to the Armed Forces Network, telling them there is no place on military airwaves for talk like Limbaugh's.

Senate Kills Blunt Amendment, For Now

By Jodi Jacobson, cross-posted from RH Reality Check

courtesy of Daily Kos

By a narrow margin of 51 to 48, the Senate today voted to "table" the Blunt Amendment, effectively killing it.  For now.

The amendment, named for Missouri GOP Senator Roy Blunt and attached to a Senate transportation bill, arose out of the fight over the birth control mandate, but went even further. Blunt would have given employers sweeping authority to decide the kinds of basic health services to be covered by insurance plans, enabling any individual employer, religious entity, corporation, or health plan to refuse to cover any health care service to which they objected even on vague "moral" grounds, including, for example, screening for cervical and breast cancer, contraception, maternity care, HPV vaccines, testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, and prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS.

Three Democrats voted against tabling--or in other words for--the Blunt Amendment: Senators Bob Casey (PA), Ben Nelson (NE), and Joe Manchin (WV). Let's just say none of these men have a history of supporting women's basic health care or rights, and Casey and Nelson both have gone out of their way in the past to undermine women's access to care.  Nelson proved that this wasn't even just a craven election ploy, since he is in any case retiring from the Senate.
The only Republican who voted to table or kill the amendment was Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who also just this week announced her retirement from the Senate, citing the high levels of partisanship and gridlock.

The Blunt Amendment was just the most recent salvo in a war over women's health and rights that, as detailed by Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) in her remarks on the floor, has been waged since the January 2009 battle over the stimulus and in virtually every single budget, deficit reduction, transportation, and defense bill since then. But it came high on the heels of efforts by the fundamentalist religious right in the United States, led by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and groups like Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and others, to undermine women's access to primary reproductive health care under health reform.

After the vote, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi noted:

“It’s not ironic, but, rather, tragic, that on the day we kick off Women’s History Month, the Senate debates this devastating legislation to put at risk health care for millions of women, including the 20 million women already benefiting from preventive health services guaranteed under health reform.  But it’s just the latest ploy in the Republican agenda of disrespecting the health of American women."

“Women and families across America can breathe a sigh of relief that this radical amendment was blocked by Senate Democrats today, said Senator Patty Murray (D-WA).

“It was absolutely appalling that Republicans forced us to spend days and days dealing with contraception and women’s health, but I am hopeful that we can now get back to work on legislation to create jobs and invest in communities across America.
“It was shameful, but not surprising.  Republicans have clearly realized that if the conversation is about jobs and the economy, they lose. So they’ve made a concerted effort in this election year to attack women’s health care in an attempt to change the subject and rile up their extreme right-wing base. They seem to believe that their path to victory on Election Day runs straight through the women’s health clinic.

But, as Murray noted, “Republicans may have lost this battle, but there’s no indication that they are going to give up attacking women’s health as a political strategy.

Democrats Must Take The Offensive On Women's Reproductive Rights

Democrats See Electoral Gold in Birth Control Fight, But Do They See Women's Health?

By Joan McCarter, cross-posted from Daily Kos

The Senate is going to be voting on Sen. Roy Blunt's amendment repealing the administration's birth control mandate and with it much of the health insurance coverage the Affordable Care Act extended. Though the primary focus of the Blunt amendment has been on birth control, the actual language of the bill would allow employers to dictate all kind of coverage exemptions for their employees, under the guise of "moral convictions." That's a proposal, by the way, which is hugely unpopular.

Which is why Democrats in the Senate are anxious to take the vote.

Democrats see the vote as a way to embarrass Republicans — especially those up for re-election in moderate states like Maine and Massachusetts — and believe that the battle may alienate women and moderates from the Republican Party. Republicans need to pick up a number of seats to take back the Senate. “They’ve gone way overboard in the mind of independents,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, in a conference call with reporters, referring to Republicans generally. The fight over contraception, he said, “is going to do lasting damage” to the Republican Party.

Lasting damage to the Republicans is all well and good. The GOP's overreach on social issues has to come to an end at some point through a good electoral stomping, and it might as well be now.

But, Democrats, how about a little effort to take the bull by the horns and start making up for the huge ground lost to the zealots in the past few decades in women's reproductive health rights? Now that the nation has a crystal clear view of exactly what Republicans intend to do with the freedoms of 51 percent of the nation's population, it's the perfect time to be proactive with a coherent message to America's women that you'll start fighting for us again.

That goes for the White House, too, which seems a little hesitant to make this a real fight.

One White House official cautioned that should the debate devolve into shrill arguments, the net result would be the alienation of the independent or moderate voters whom Mr. Obama is trying to woo in his reelection bid. “Look, we don’t want to overplay this either, so we’ll be cautious,” another White House official said.

Just look, again, at the polling. There's no time like the present for getting just a little bit shrill. That's the least the nation's women deserve.

Birth Control Bishops

Rather than spend energy fighting contraception legislation, the Catholic Bishops should clean up their own backyard.

By Rose Aguilar, cross-posted from Al Jazeera

Forget child abuse. The Catholic Bishops would rather spend their time, money, and resources on birth control and women's sex lives. The main debate over the past few weeks in the United States has been about birth control. And guess who's dominating it? The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the country's official organisation of the Catholic hierarchy.

The bishops are up in arms over the Obama administration's rule that would have required health insurance plans, including Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities, to offer free contraception. Once the bishops took to the airwaves to criticise the decision, the administration modified its policy so that insurance companies, not Catholic hospitals or universities, pay for contraception. But that didn't appease the bishops - or Republican extremists.

On February 16, House Republicans thought it was necessary, with all the economic problems the US is facing, to hold a hearing on the contraception rule. The panel was comprised of five men - five religious men who without any kind of health background (watch this video, towards the end).

Before walking out of the hearing, Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York said: "What I want to know is: where are the women?"

The next day, MSNBC's Morning Joe asked that very question. Ironically enough, Morning Joe's discussion about the all-male hearing on birth control was comprised of men. You really can't make this up.

This issue isn't going away anytime soon. According to Reuters, the bishops' conference plans to "battle" the administration on the contraception issue by running TV and radio ads, and asking pastors of every evangelical denomination across the country to read their congregations a letter protesting the mandate as an assault on religious liberty.

You Really Want To Have A Culture War?

DonkeyHotey

What is going on with the Republican Party?  Sure, the House is filled with Tea Party extremists, the base has supported (and continues to support) some pretty wacky presidential hopefuls, and its leaders are far more concerned with toppling Obama than governing.  But they used to be more politically astute in their choice of wedge issues.  Now it seems they've completely lost their moorings with their aggressive and quite unpopular assault on contraceptive coverage.

As I wrote about earlier (see Occupy the Bedroom), Republicans are pushing for an amendment to the Affordable Care Act that would allow employers to deny coverage not just for contraception but for any treatment or any condition they claimed was contrary to their religious beliefs.

They are enthusiastically, if transparently, framing their attack on women's health, the right to privacy and health care reform as an issue of religious freedom.  Hence, the hearing today before a House Committee on the following question:  “Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?”   The hearing, consisting of a panel of eight men, is skewed so that only those who agree with the Republican position will be heard from. But are they really fooling anyone?

It is one thing for the far right to be agitating for this kind of culture war, but purportedly moderate Republicans are being drawn in too.  Maybe, there just aren't any more moderates in the Republican Party.

As this piece in the New York Times suggests, it is all about firing up the base, which has been somewhat lackluster in the wake of their uninspiring presidential candidates, and once again going after Obamacare:

Major evangelical groups that openly opposed Mr. Obama and his health care plan in the past see this as a new affront and a new opportunity for attack.
The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents thousands of churches in 40 denominations, “will be working vigorously” against the mandate, said Galen Carey, the association’s vice president for government relations — lending substance to the statement last week by Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and a Baptist minister, that “we are all Catholics now.”
Evangelical leaders say they would be outraged by the mandate in any case, but many also believe that it will bring them political gains. [Ralph] Reed, the conservative strategist, said that even if a majority of Americans expressed general support for requiring contraceptive coverage — and even if, as he believes, the economy remained the primary issue — getting conservative and religious voters more fired up could make a difference.

Democrats, as always, should follow Elizabeth Warren's lead and take on the Republicans.  She unapologetically attacked her Senate opponent, Scott Brown, for supporting the proposed amendment which she framed as "an extreme attack on every one of us”:

It opens the door to outright discrimination. It would let insurance companies and corporations cut off pregnant women, overweight guys, older Americans, or anyone — because some executive claims it’s part of his moral code. Maybe that wouldn’t happen, but I don’t want to take the chance.

Warren, quite correctly, argues that this issue must be viewed through the prism of economics:

This election is about whose side you stand on.  Here’s an example of giving power to insurance companies and corporations to undercut basic health care coverage. I’m going to fight for families to keep that coverage. The economics around health care are huge for families.

It has long been conventional wisdom that the culture wars help Republicans and drive a wedge between so-called Independents and Democratic "elites."  If the Democrats fight back, it won't work this time.