June 25, 2015

Conservatives have white hot emotional meltdown after SCOTUS Obamacare ruling

Within minutes of news that the Supreme Court upheld nationwide tax subsidies key to Obamacare, conservatives reacted angrily online Thursday.

Lady Liberty
@LadyLibrty

Silver lining: #Obamacare CAN'T be fixed, contrary to @GOP blather. Now go for #FullRepeal (which our reps promised in the 1st place). #tcot

10:40 AM - 25 Jun 2015

Some went to Free Republic, an online conservative repository of ultra-right wing banter. “Treason!” wrote one in large font. “So truth just doesn’t matter anymore,” another lamented. “We are in la-la land as we continue to surrender power to alchemist in black robes as they read entrails and legislate from the bench,” cautioned a third.

Mike Huckabee took to Facebook to call Obamacare “un-American,” writing “Our Founding Fathers didn’t create a “do-over” provision in our Constitution that allows unelected, Supreme Court justices the power to circumvent Congress and rewrite bad laws. The Supreme Court cannot legislate from the bench, ignore the Constitution, and pass a multi-trillion dollar ‘fix’ to ObamaCare simply because Congress misread what the states would actually do.”

John Hayward, a writer at Breitbart, tweeted “Goodbye, rule of law. It was great while it lasted.”

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/conservatives-have-white-hot-emotional-meltdown-after-scotus-obamacare-ruling/

June 25, 2015

Ambitious Obscurity: The Lincoln Chafee Story

Olivia Nuzzi

The former Rhode Island governor may have a wide-open schedule, just two campaign staffers, and marked disinterest in fundraising, but he swears he’s serious about 2016.

Lincoln Chafee is not a very busy man.

Getting him on the phone is not particularly difficult, and he will graciously remain on the line until you’ve asked all your questions. In the next three weeks, he has just three public events on his schedule: two meetings with local Democratic groups in New Hampshire and one appearance in Iowa, at the Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame ceremony. For a former governor—which Chafee, who served one term as Rhode Island’s executive, is—a spare dance card is not atypical.

But Chafee isn’t in retirement. He’s running for president.

If you’ve heard of him at all, you may know that Chafee is a Republican, turned independent, turned Democrat who was appointed to the Senate after the death of his father, John Chafee. He looks like a cross between Jeff Daniels and Steve Doocy, with a demeanor reminiscent of Ron Paul.

Those who know Chafee call him “Linc” for short. The last of a dying breed of liberal Republicans, he earned the distinction of being the only GOP senator to vote against the war in Iraq. He placed a symbolic vote for George H.W. Bush for president in 2004, as a means of expressing his disapproval of W. Later, in his time as Rhode Island governor during the Great Recession, he earned the nicknames “Governor Gump” and “Governor Grinch,” the latter after a fight over what to call Christmas trees.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/25/ambitious-obscurity-the-lincoln-chafee-story.html

June 25, 2015

Judge Blocks Kansas Abortion Ban Pro-Lifers Dubbed 'Dismemberment'

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas judge on Thursday blocked the state's first-in-the-nation ban on an abortion procedure that opponents refer to as "dismemberment abortion."

The decision from Shawnee County District Court Judge Larry Hendricks came in a lawsuit filed from the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights. The center represents two Kansas abortion providers and argued the law would force women to undergo riskier procedures or forgo abortions.

The judge's order will stay in effect while he considers the lawsuit further. The new law was supposed to take effect July 1.

It bans a second-trimester procedure that anti-abortion activists call "dismemberment abortion" and was model legislation from the National Right to Life Committee. Kansas was the first state to enact it.

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/kansas-abortion-law-judge-blocks

June 25, 2015

President Obama: ‘The Affordable Care Act is here to stay’

Source: Newsweek

Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision to uphold tax subsidies crucial to the implementation of Obamacare, President Barack Obama addressed the country about his signature health care law.

"The Affordable Care Act is here to stay," Obama said.

"All of America has protections it didn't have before," he said Thursday morning, standing alongside Vice President Joe Biden in the White House's Rose Garden. "This is not an abstract thing anymore. This is not a set of political talking points. This is reality. We can see how it's working."

In a 6-3 decision on the legitimacy of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Thursday, the country's highest court upheld the part of the law that makes it easier for Americans to afford insurance, no matter where they live. Millions of Americans, Obama said, will continue to receive tax credits for signing up to the ACA.

more

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/president-obama-the-affordable-care-act-is-here-to-stay/

June 25, 2015

Mississippi Guv Tears Into SCOTUS For Upholding 'Socialist' Obamacare

Source: TPM

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) on Thursday railed against President Obama and the Supreme Court after the justices upheld the subsidies provided through the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

"Today’s decision does not change the fact that Obamacare is a socialist takeover of health care forced down the throats of the American people without proper review, and it does not slow the massive and unprecedented transfer of wealth that is at the heart of the subsidy system," Bryant said in a statement.

"Make no mistake—Obamacare is not about helping those in need or improving health care delivery," he continued. "It is about destabilizing our health care system, ceding more control to centralized government and replacing individual liberty with government dependence."

Bryant mentioned that Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal justices again to uphold a portion of Obamacare.

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/phil-bryant-obamacare-socialist-supreme-court

June 25, 2015

Rand Paul: Obamacare Decision Turns 'The Rule Of Law... On Its Head'

Source: TPM

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, said Thursday that the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare was effectively turning "both the rule of law and common sense on its head."

Paul's statement said President Obama's health care program "is the wrong fix" for America.

“This decision turns both the rule of law and common sense on its head," Paul reportedly said. "Obamacare raises taxes, harms patients and doctors, and is the wrong fix for America’s health care system."

Paul also discussed what he would do differently as President and noted his perspective as a doctor.

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rand-paul-obamacare-scotus-decision

June 25, 2015

Brainiac Scott Walker reveals GOP secret plan: Win with male voters! - By Joan Walsh

Walker hopes a male backlash can help him defeat Hillary Clinton. Here’s why he’s wrong again

JOAN WALSH

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has some advice for his party about how to beat a female candidate, namely Hillary Clinton. (Emily’s List’s Jess McIntosh explores “the Scott Walker Playbook” here.) He thinks his success defeating rival Mary Burke, a businesswoman whose only political experience came as a Madison school board member, makes him qualified to face down the most popular living female in the U.S. and the world.

Analysts have marveled at Walker’s willingness to alienate female voters with his ugly embrace of a 20-week abortion ban that includes no exceptions for rape or incest. But I think he revealed his strategy to deal with the gender gap in his race with Burke last year: He thinks he can drive up the male vote with tone-deaf attacks on abortion and pay equity.

Asked about Burke’s strong support among women, he turned it around and claimed that the real problem was Burke’s unpopularity with male voters: “[T]he bigger trend is not if I have a gender question, it’s actually that she’s off the chart from where a Democrat normally is, gender-wise, with male voters as opposed to female.” In the end, Burke’s margin with female voters wasn’t enough to beat Walker in Wisconsin.

Walker thinks the same strategy will work with Hillary Clinton. But again, he’s way out of his depth, extrapolating from a Wisconsin race against a political neophyte to offer advice about beating Clinton in a 50-state campaign. He sounds especially clueless talking about pay equity, suggesting the policy is part of Clinton’s strategy to “pit one group against another group out there.” He told Boston Herald Radio: “I believe that the president and now Hillary Clinton tend to think that politically they do better if they pit one group of Americans versus another.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/25/brainiac_scott_walker_reveals_gop_secret_plan_win_with_male_voters/

June 25, 2015

Fox & Friends’ stunning hypocrisy: “We were never told the nature of (Dylann Roof's) bias”

The gang also argued that racism isn't a real problem in the U.S.

JOANNA ROTHKOPF

On Thursday morning’s “Fox & Friends,” hosts Steve Doocy, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Brian Kilmeade demonstrated a fairly impressive feat for a five-minute segment, denying that racism is a widespread problem in the U.S. then swiftly arguing that it isn’t their fault they didn’t know Dylann Storm Roof, the Charleston shooter, was a white supremacist.

Hasselbeck first said, “It’s disappointing and it’s irresponsible to call racism when it’s not racism because it basically underscores the hate when it actually does happen–”

“It blunts it,” Kilmeade corrected.

“If we were a racist nation, Barack Obama would not have been elected president of the United States twice. It’s a math thing,” Doocy chimed in.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/25/fox_friends_hypocritical_reversal_we_were_never_told_the_nature_of_dylann_roofs_bias/

June 25, 2015

Univision drops Miss USA pageant over Donald Trump’s comments about Latinos

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) — Univision says it is dropping the Miss USA pageant and says it will cut all business ties with Donald Trump over comments he made about Mexican immigrants.

The network said Thursday it will not air the July pageant and has ended its business relationship with the Miss Universe Organization, which produces the Miss USA pageant, due to what it called “insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants” by Trump, a part owner of Miss Universe.

During his presidential campaign kickoff speech last week, Trump accused Latino immigrants of bringing drugs, crime and rapists to the U.S. He called for building a wall along the southern border of the U.S.

Trump says he was only criticizing U.S. policies concerning Mexico, not its people. He says Univision is in default of a five-year contract.

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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2015/06/25/univision_dropping_miss_usa_pageant_over_trump_comments/

June 25, 2015

Fox News has a conspiracy theory for the ages: Obama secretly wants his healthcare law destroyed!

Fox News has a conspiracy theory for the ages: Obama secretly wants his healthcare law destroyed!

With the Supreme Court's ACA ruling pending, Fox News squeezed in one more flagrantly stupid King v. Burwell take

SIMON MALOY

Today could very well be the day we get a Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell. Or it might not be. The ruling could come tomorrow, or Monday. Either way, there isn’t much time left before we transition to the next phase of Affordable Care Act’s life, with or without health insurance subsidies in the majority of states. And given that time is short, I wanted to seize this moment to share with you, my beloved reader(s), one of the hottest King v. Burwell takes that has yet been cooked up.

To recap, the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell seize on four words in the text of the Affordable Care Act to argue that the law is written in such a way that the federal government cannot legally dole out health insurance subsidies to residents of states that use the federal insurance marketplace. The legal minds who dreamed up the case contend that Congress intentionally drafted the bill this way in order to effectively coerce the states into setting up their own marketplaces – build your own exchange, or your residents won’t get money to help pay for health insurance. According to this mythology, the administration didn’t anticipate that so many states would refuse this deal, and so it ordered the IRS to dole out the subsidies in direct violation of the law.

Making this argument requires one to ignore everything one knows about the drafting and passage of the ACA, embrace some fantastical leaps of logic, and deny obvious truths in a spirit of deliberate and pernicious bad faith. And conservatives happily embraced this warped history of the ACA because King v. Burwell carries the potential to do real damage to Obamacare.

That brings us to Matt Kibbe, the outgoing CEO of the Tea Party astroturf group FreedomWorks. Kibbe sees something else happening in the administration’s implementation of Obamacare – something far more sinister than the pedestrian illegality that the rest of the conservative movement has convinced itself of. He wrote an Op-Ed for Fox News a couple of days ago confidently predicting that the Supreme Court will rule for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell and cripple the Affordable Care Act, and Obama wants it that way.

Read, and be scandalized:

Obama is not worried about the Supreme Court ruling against him, he’s banking on it. It gives him an opportunity to blame Republicans for robbing people of their health care. By taking no action, he can point fingers at everyone else for spoiling his vision of government-run health care.

It’s the ultimate insider play: pass a broken law in a one-sided, partisan way, lie to people about what the law does, allow the IRS to implement the law illegally, and then, when it all falls apart, fiddle while America burns in the interest of scoring political points.

No wonder people hate Washington.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/25/fox_news_has_a_conspiracy_theory_for_the_ages_obama_secretly_wants_his_healthcare_law_destroyed/