"How Liberals Win"

"President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the National Recovery Act."

Bill Scher (NY Times op-ed):

President Obama has endured much criticism of his legislative skills from his fellow progressives. His conciliatory approach has been compared unfavorably with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s gleeful pugnacity and Lyndon B. Johnson’s relentless arm-twisting. His willingness to strike deals with corporations has been tagged “business as usual.” Many progressives, frustrated over the past three years, have concluded that the political system is fundamentally broken because corporate power has been allowed to suffocate popular liberal policies.

But the Supreme Court’s upholding of Mr. Obama’s health care law reminds us that the president’s approach has achieved significant results. If his liberal critics paused to assess how he achieved such results, they would not see a system paralyzed by corporations; they would see that the most liberal reforms in more than 40 years have been brought about because Mr. Obama views corporate power as a force to bargain with, not an enemy to vanquish. MORE...

Howie P.S.: The Money Quote-

The realities of corporate power cannot be wished away by any president, no matter how tough the talk, because corporations can and will spend freely during the legislative process. And when they are unified, they have the resources to dominate debate. Even the progressive holy grail — a constitutional amendment banning corporate campaign donations — would not stop that.

Sandra Fluke: "Why Obamacare is worth fighting for against Mitt Romney's repeal threat"

Sandra Fluke (GuardianUK):

Now that the supreme court has declared, once and for all, the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, much of the debate has turned to the politics of the ruling and what it means for the coming election. It's events like Thursday's that shine a light on the stark contrasts between our two presidential candidates.

In the hours after yesterday's ruling, Governor Romney wasted no time reminding us that repealing Obamacare will be a top priority if he's elected, egged on by congressional Republicans who had already scheduled a vote to dismantle the law. Meanwhile, President Obama continued to focus on the real-world benefits this law will bring to millions of Americans.

I agree with the president that we cannot lose sight of the human impact this law will have on young women and men just graduating from college; on mothers, fathers, and children alike. And while the supreme court's decision was a decisive victory for the American people, it does also underscore just how much is at stake in this election. MORE...

"Obama’s Big Health Care Win: An Incredible Stroke of Luck"

David Goldman / AP/"Supporters of President Barack Obama's health care law celebrate outside the Supreme Court in Washington, on June 28, 2012, after the court's ruling was announced."

Michael Grunwald (TIME):

During the Tea Party summer of 2009, when suburban revolutionaries with funny hats and nasty signs began screaming about Obamacare and tyranny, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel urged the President to settle for a less comprehensive health plan. But Obama said no, he felt lucky. At the end of the summer, after Obama’s approval ratings had sagged and Obamacare’s approval ratings had plunged, Emanuel asked during an Oval Office meeting whether he still felt lucky.

“My name is Barack Hussein Obama and I’m sitting here,” said Obama, in an anecdote first reported by Jonathan Alter in his book The Promise. “So yeah, I’m feeling pretty lucky." MORE...

"How the Supreme Court's Healthcare Ruling Boosts Obama's Reelection Bid"

Tim Dickinson (Rolling Stone):

"It's constitutional. Bitches." —Patrick Gaspard, Executive Director, DNC

Obamacare lives. And, with it, Barack Obama's case for a second term.

In laying the groundwork for 2012, Obama and Mitt Romney have had dueling imperatives: The president needs to make sure that the November election is a choice. Romney needs to make it an up-or-down referendum.

In Team Obama's frame, choosing to reelect the president is a vote to continue moving "Forward"; choosing Romney is a vote to return to the policies that created our current pain.

That frame only works, however, if you can demonstrate that you're, in fact, creating forward progress that's easing the pain. And June has been a hazardous month for that narrative. The nation's slow, steady economic recovery appeared to stall out. Job growth flatlined. Then Obama gaffed, calling the private sector's stagnating performance "fine."

The June gloom played right into Team Romney's frame: "Obama isn't working." The president hasn't delivered. You need to vote him out of office (by, oh yeah, voting for me.) The upshot of this referendum model is that you don't even have to like Romney, just so long as you want to oust Obama.

Now, imagine for a moment that the president's signature legislative accomplishment had gone down the tubes this morning, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the dissenters in finding the Affordable Care Act "invalid in its entirety."

The Romney camp could have rightly blasted Obama for two years of wasted effort. MORE...

H/t to Ari Berman.

"Obamacare Upheld: How and Why Did Justice Roberts Do It?"

David Cole (The Nation):

So why did Roberts do it? In part, the outcome reflects the fact that the truly radical position in this dispute was that of the challengers. Even very conservative lower court judges, including Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit and Laurence Silberman of the DC Circuit, had concluded that the law was valid (although on Commerce Clause, not taxing power, grounds). But in addition, I cannot help but think that at the back of Roberts’ mind was the Court’s institutional standing. Had the law been struck down on “party lines,” the Court’s reputation would be seriously undermined. In May, the Pew Research Center reported that favorable views of the Supreme Court as an institution had reached an all-time low. Sharply divided partisan decisions like Bush v. Gore and Citizens United appear to have done damage to the Court’s legitimacy—and ultimately, its legitimacy is the source of the Court’s power. Today’s result, which upholds the actions of the democratically elected branches on a major piece of social welfare legislation that affects us all against a challenge that was always a real long shot, driven more by politics than legal principle, may help repair the Court’s tarnished image. MORE...

WA: "Inslee says it's time to make health care law work"

AP:

Congressman Jay Inslee, the Democrat running for governor of Washington, says the Supreme Court upheld the health care law despite "enormous political pressure by Republican attorneys general."

In a statement Thursday, Inslee says he hopes Republicans do not see the ruling as an opportunity for further partisan bickering.

Inslee says both parties need to make the law work for the American people.

Howie P.S.: Or as Tim Gunn says, "Make it work!"

DEMOCRACY NOW!-LIVE SCOTUS COVERAGE (streaming video)

Video from Democracy Now!

"How Badly Will SCOTUS Screw Up Obamacare?" (Updated)

"Uninsured patients receiving care at a free clinic."

Jonathan Chait:

The Supreme Court is likely to announce soon if it has decided to declare the individual mandate unconstitutional. (Which is to say, it’s announcing whether Anthony Kennedy hates health care reform a lot or only a little, because everybody assumes the other four Republican justices hate it so much they’ll declare it unconstitutional.)

As you can tell, I’m already bitter about this, as the constitutionality of the individual mandate is so obvious that the mere fact that the controversy exists suggests a frightening will to power by the legal arm of the conservative movement. But, as we consider the possible outcomes, it’s worth keeping in mind something that is not likely to come through in the news coverage: The vast majority of the bill is likely to stay in place. MORE...

Howie P.S.:

Pithy quotes from Chait-

"Conservatives tend toward triumphalism, liberals tend toward despair, and the news media tends to overplay the importance of whatever thing just happened."

"If the Court strikes down the mandate, I will lose my shit. But striking the mandate would not end the law, or even most of the law."

Howie P.P.S.: Public Option Advocates To Push Medicare For All If Supreme Court Strikes ‘Obamacare.’

NY Times Editorial: "Activism and the Roberts Court"

NY Times (editorial):

The ideological nature of the health care case was obvious on the last day of oral argument. By the time the proceedings were over, much of what the conservative justices said in court seemed like part of a politically driven exercise — especially because the issues addressed on Wednesday were not largely constitutional in nature. In fact, they were the kinds of policy questions that are properly left to Congress and state governments to answer, not the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday morning, the court heard arguments on the issue of “severability” — the question of what should happen with the rest of the 2,700-page statute if the requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance is struck down. The insurance mandate was effectively reduced to a bumper sticker by the opponents in their constitutional challenge, and the entire law reduced to little more than an appendage to the mandate. MORE...

Jen Sorensen on Daily Kos: "If buying broccoli were like buying health insurance." (with cartoon)

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

Jen Sorensen (Daily Kos);

Congratulations, America! Decades upon decades of struggle for a more civilized health insurance system now rest in the hands of your smug, Newsmax-reading uncle. Or his highly-trained, yet no less ignorant equivalents.

A report from 2010 suggests that 275,000 will die due to lack of health insurance over the following decade. That's far, far greater than the number who perished on September 11. And the judges who will be deciding the fate of those hundreds of thousands of lives -- most of whom I suspect have never had to deal with the incredible cruelties faced by those whose jobs do not provide insurance -- cannot distinguish a health insurance policy from a cruciferous vegetable. I didn't have room to go into the more complex economic issues about risk-sharing which make broccoli an especially poor analogy, but hey, you can only do so much in a cartoon.

Get a signed print of this cartoon from the artist.

Dylan Ratigan Show: "Ari Melber and the Megapanel on what would happen if the Health Care Act was overturned" (video)

MSNBC-Dylan Ratigan, video (07:16).

Digby on the "props" Obama deserves on health care

Digby:

* New federal guidelines resulting from Obamacare mean virtually all insurance plans may soon be required to offer free coverage of birth control.

* Digby says the Obama administration deserves props for the proposal because it will provoke a major national backlash from the right, but she advises liberals to hang tough because it’s a fight they can win.

Howie P.S.: The above comes from tonight's "Happy Hour Roundup" by Greg Sargent.

"Fighting back against the mandate" (video)

MSNBC-The Last Word, video (06:28).

Howie P.S.: Melissa Harris-Blackwell and Ari Melber discuss the politics of the fight over the "individual mandate" in the health care reform bill.

"Court raises stakes on health care law"

Ari Melber (Politico):

In the decision, Judge Roger Vinson conceded that it is unusual to throw out an entire statute just because one part is held unconstitutional. Then he did it. He ruled the government does not have the power to make people buy insurance, and then chucked out everything else.

By taking that tack, this case is different than all the others challenges to the health care law.

It raises the stakes from tinkering to demolition. For the first time, a lower court has proposed a legal theory that the individual mandate eviscerates the legal foundation of the entire law. This opens an attractive avenue for a conservative Supreme Court aiming to permanently limit federal power.

For the past 15 years, the court’s conservative bloc has sought to curb Congress’ use of the Constitution’s commerce powers, invalidating even popular laws targeting violence against women and guns in school. To most people, those were obscure cases. Now, the court could wade into today’s most prominent domestic issue, linking its jurisprudence to an impassioned constituency.
(SNIP)
Meanwhile, the White House has begun echoing a traditionally conservative legal playbook, criticizing the decision as “judicial activism.”

Stephanie Cutter, an assistant to President Barack Obama for health care, called the ruling a “plain case of judicial overreaching,” breaking with the precedent that “courts have a constitutional obligation to preserve as a much of a statute as can be preserved.”

Senior presidential adviser David Axelrod, for his part, sounded like a law professor lecturing on separation of powers. “The role of the courts is not to look for expansive opportunities to invalidate an act of Congress,” Axelrod told the Huffington Post, “it is to rule narrowly as possible and leave intact the intent of the legislation.”MORE...

Howie P.S.: Gosh, maybe the three years Ari just spent in law school wasn't a career detour after all!

"Rep. McDermott on The Rachel Maddow Show" (video)

RepJimMcDermott, video (04:24).

Howie P.S.: Rachel calls him "Dr. McDermott."

"Ad Campaign: Netroots Turns Its Sites From Obama To The GOP" (with video)

UPDATE: Chris Bowers invites you to make a contribution to expand the ad campaign.


Sam Stein (HuffPo), with video (01:03):

A coalition of Democratic groups and progressive bloggers launched a new campaign on Thursday focusing attention on Republican members of Congress who voted to repeal health care reform while getting their own coverage on the taxpayer's dime. MORE...

"Rachel Maddow interviews House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi" - full version (video)

The Maddow Blog, video (28:03).

"Health care repeal splits Washington state congressional delegation"

Rob Hotakainen (McClatchy Newspapers):

In a new era of divided government, their victory could be short-lived: When the issue moves to the Democratically-controlled Senate, Washington state's Patty Murray is among a group of four senior senators vowing to block the repeal by denying it a vote.

But Murray acknowledged that a repeal approved by the House would put "tremendous pressure" on the Senate to follow suit.

Murray, the new head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is already using the repeal effort as a way to raise money for her party's candidates in 2012.

"Repeal would have real-life consequences," Murray wrote in a fundraising letter. "Your diabetic sister would lose coverage due to a pre-existing condition. Your young adult son could be kicked off the family insurance plan. And your niece, born with a heart condition, could be denied insurance to boost corporate profits."

Murray teamed up with three Democratic senators — Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Chuck Schumer of New York — in writing a letter to House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, urging him to not take up the repeal. MORE...

Democrats Plan "a vigorous defense of President Obama’s health care legislation."

NY Times:

Democratic leaders in Washington plan to spend the next week doing what they all but refused to do in the 2010 midterm elections: mount a vigorous defense of President Obama’s health care legislation.

The “all fronts” plan is a response to the decision by the new House speaker, John A. Boehner, to schedule a vote next Wednesday on a complete repeal of the health care law that Mr. Obama signed last March.

Senior Democratic officials said their effort would be managed by a rapid response operation modeled after the ones Mr. Obama used in his presidential campaign. That team will monitor Republican claims, send out fact-checks and deploy a team of surrogates to get their views on television. MORE...

"Obama Lashes Out At 'Hostage-Taking' Republicans, Sanctimonious Democrats" (with video)

Sam Stein, quoting Barack Obama, with video (32:24).

So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats have been fighting for for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn't get that would have affected maybe a couple million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people, and the potential for lower premiums for 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise. MORE...

Howie P.S.: I need a little more explanation about how the public option would have only "affected maybe a couple million people." Only? And I was also under the impression that competition from the lower overhead costs would have benefited all people, by offering more price relief and deficit reduction.