“When Will They Ever Learn?”: Republicans Finally File Lawsuit Against Obama – And Stand To Gain Almost Nothing
Back in June, House Republicans announced, with deep regret yet great fanfare, that they were going to sue Barack Obama over his tyrannical usurpation of power. The suit was never actually filed; two lawyers the House had hired ended up quitting, and it looked as if it would fade away.
Then this week Republicans announced that they had found another lawyer to take the case, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who says he’s a liberal but has become an intense critic of the Obama administration. Just four days later, the lawsuit has finally been filed:
House Republicans filed a long-threatened lawsuit Friday against the Obama administration over unilateral actions on the health care law that they say are abuses of the president’s executive authority.
The lawsuit — filed against the secretaries of the Health and Human Services and Treasury Departments — focuses on two crucial aspects of the way the administration has put the Affordable Care Act into effect.
The suit accuses the Obama administration of unlawfully postponing a requirement that larger employers offer health coverage to their full-time employees or pay penalties. (Larger companies are defined as those with 50 or more employees.)
In July 2013, the administration deferred that requirement until 2015. Seven months later,the administration announced a further delay, until 2016, for employers with 50 to 99 employees.
The suit also challenges what it says is President Obama‘s unlawful giveaway of roughly $175 billion to insurance companies under the law. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the administration will pay that amount to the companies over the next 10 years, though the funds have not been appropriated by Congress. The lawsuit argues that it is an unlawful transfer of funds.
Call me cynical, but I can’t help but think that the newfound urgency to move ahead with the suit has something to do with President Obama’s immigration order. If conservative Republicans aren’t satisfied with whatever confrontation their leaders manage to create with Obama over immigration, John Boehner can say, “Don’t forget, we’re suing him!”
But what do Republicans get if they win this suit? Not much more than a symbolic victory. The actual complaints in the suit were always strange — they’re suing Obama for delaying the employer mandate, a provision they despise. If they won, he’d be forced to speed up implementation of the mandate, even as Republicans are pressing to eliminate it altogether. And by the time the suit winds its way through the courts, the issue will probably be moot. The mandate for employers with over 100 workers goes into effect in January (though they are only required to cover 70 percent of their employees, and almost all companies of that size already provided coverage even before the law was passed). And the mandate for the mid-size companies goes into effect in a year. By the time the case is heard by a high court, the remedy it’s seeking will probably have already taken place.
As for the other of the suit’s complaints, on cost-sharing subsidies, if Republicans are successful in killing them it would mean that poor people would have to pay more in copays and deductibles. But unlike the subsidies in three dozen states that are at issue in the King v. Burwell lawsuit, which the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear, this provision isn’t critical to the law’s basic functioning. So apart from the satisfaction some Republicans might receive from making life harder for the working poor, even if they win this lawsuit they won’t have dealt the ACA a serious blow.
Legal experts who have looked at this suit haven’t found much merit in it, particularly on the claim about the employer mandate. Federal agencies frequently delay the implementation of far-reaching regulations while practical problems are worked out. But even if they prevail, all Republicans stand to gain is the ability to say that they beat Barack Obama in court. Which may be more than nothing, but it isn’t much more than that.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect; The Plum Line, The Washington Post, November 21, 2014
“Inflicting Terror”: In Ferguson, A Militarized Police Force Isn’t Necessary For Suppression
Nearly every night in Ferguson, a group of protesters gathers in front of the police department demanding justice for Michael Brown. The size of the demonstration has varied, depending on people’s availability and on the weather conditions, but the dedication to protesting has remained consistent since Brown’s death.
In these days leading up to the announcement of whether a grand jury has indicted Darren Wilson for killing Brown, everyone is on edge. The uncertainty of when the decision will be released to the public, coupled with Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s declaration of a state of emergency, has left plans for action up in the air and the quest for justice without answers. But the people still show up to police departments.
The anxiety has only been exacerbated the last few nights in Ferguson, as those protests have been met by a show of force on the part of the Ferguson police department. The night I was there—Wednesday, November 19—there were no more than about forty protesters at any given moment, met with police presence of equal or greater number. Of course, the major difference was that the police stood armed, in riot gear, and the protesters had only their bullhorns, chants and emotion.
It remained relatively calm for a time. The police, lined up as if to block the passageway to the department doors, already unavailable to anyone because of the metal barricade, played a game of cat and mouse, advancing a few feet and backing protesters up, before retreating themselves. Things escalated when during one of their advances they arrested a young man who had shown up to livestream the event.
The police advanced further as the protesters took to the streets, directing traffic away from their action. Protestors ran to what they thought would be a safe space across the street, but a few weren’t lucky enough to make it. At least five people were arrested that night, mostly for unlawful assembly as well as resisting arrest.
Aside from the chanting, there was no provocation of the police on the part of the protesters. There was one instance of an object being thrown, a water bottle, but other protesters quickly handled it: the person responsible, dressed in all black from head-to-toe, including a black mask that obscured their face, was run off of the protest site and heckled as an agitator who was putting the lives of the protesters at risk.
“If the media wasn’t out here, they’d have arrested us all,” one protester remarked.
A similar scene played out on Thursday evening, with the lesson here being that a militarized police force isn’t necessary to inflict terror. The police have proved themselves violent even without the use of tanks and tear gas. The people’s right to assemble peacefully won’t be protected. The Ferguson police department hasn’t taken any of the national or international criticism they have received to heart. And as the announcement of the decision on whether to indict Wilson dangles in some unknown future, the anxiety builds and takes an unknowable psychic toll on the most dedicated protesters.
But their resolve to see this through is strong.
By: Mychal Denzel Smith, The Nation, November 21, 2014
“The Lessons Of November 1963”: People Come And Go, Strong Institutions Endure
Most of us who were alive 51 years ago remember exactly what we were doing the moment we heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. That day in Dallas significantly changed my perspective on the presidency and American institutions.
I had just returned to my desk at the then-U.S. Civil Service Commission when I noticed that Shirley, our office secretary, was crying. She told me why. Nothing could have prepared us for that weekend in November 1963.
How do you get your head around the news that the president of the United States has been assassinated? Killed in broad daylight on a Dallas street. A president we looked up to, the titular head of an almost mystical family who was leading us into a New Frontier. Gone. Without any warning, gone.
That afternoon, sitting in front of a TV screen and holding my firstborn, 18-month-old Rob, I joined the rest of the nation and cried. It was the first of many tear-filled moments that stretched over several days.
The scenes, the heart-wrenching scenes: the night arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, the funeral procession to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, the burial ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
That period of mourning was interrupted by a shocking scene in the basement of the Dallas police station: the entire nation an eyewitness to Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder by Jack Ruby.
More had happened, however, than I realized at the time.
The assassination changed expectations.
The dynamism and beauty that had come to be called the New Frontier ended. John F. Kennedy died in Dallas. But the American presidency did not die with him. The president’s heart stopped, but the nation’s never missed a beat.
At 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time, the 35th president of the United States was assassinated. At 2:38 p.m. CST, Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States, an oath of office administered by a federal judge under the authority of the Constitution.
U.S. armed forces worldwide continued their daily troop counts, assembled in units of varying sizes, policed their surroundings, cleaned weapons and trained. The Army’s day continued to end with “Taps.”
The lights stayed on at the Capitol.
Government carried on.
That was the lesson of five decades ago: People — revered and reviled, weak and powerful — come and go. Strong institutions endure.
America remained on course in the midst of that tragedy at Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas.
Nov. 22, 1963, teaches us that no political figure is indispensable in this country. No one person carries the nation. And it was no time for partisan politics.
That lesson needs to be borne in mind today.
What kept us on course in ’63 was respect for law and a reliance on a regular order that requires abiding by established rules and procedures, starting with the Constitution.
If ever there were a time when political encroachment or power grabs by the opposition could have developed, it was following the sudden death of a president. That did not happen.
In retrospect, we witnessed the fulfillment of George Washington’s wish for America during that sorrow-filled weekend 51 years ago. The country remained on a path which “gain[ed] time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.”
And today? What of today’s capital? “Government shutdown,” “legacy of lawlessness,” “obstructionism,” “gridlock,” “impeachment”?
W.B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming” comes to mind:
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; . . .
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
By: Colbert I. King, Opinion Pages, The Washington Post, November 22, 2014
“He Was Awfully Busy Last Time”: In Early Polling, God Remains Undecided On Pick For 2016 GOP Nominee
Had you asked me which of the 20 or so potential Republican presidential candidates would be first to claim that his candidacy was endorsed by God himself, I would have said Ben Carson, who has the necessary combination of deep religious faith and self-aggrandizing nuttiness. And today we learn that while the creator of the universe is still mulling his options, he’s not exactly giving Carson a no:
In an interview on Thursday with Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, Carson said he felt the hand of the Lord pushing him toward the White House.
“Has He grabbed you by the collar yet?” host David Brody asked.
“I feel fingers,” Carson said. “But, um, you know… It’s mostly me.”
Admirably modest and self-aware, I’d say. But I still bet that eventually Carson will announce that he’s received a signal from above that the campaign is a go. If and when he does, he’ll surely have some competition, that is if 2016 is anything like 2012. In case you don’t recall, God was awfully busy last time. Here are some highlights:
Michele Bachmann, when asked if she was being called to run, said, “Well, every decision that I make, I pray about, as does my husband, and I can tell you, yes, I’ve had that calling and that tugging on my heart that this is the right thing to do.” She also noted that God had called her to run for Congress in 2006.
In July of 2011, Rick Perry said his impending campaign was a God-sanctioned religious mission: “I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do. This is what America needs.”
While Rick Santorum didn’t say God had instructed him to run, his wife Karen did say that she put aside her initial reluctance about a campaign after concluding that it was what God wanted.
My personal favorite is Herman Cain’s story of how one day when he was tired from going out and meeting potential voters his granddaughter sent him a text telling him she loved him. The sweet act of a loving child? Heavens, no. “Do you know that had to be God?” Cain said. “I know that God was speaking to me through my granddaughter, that this is something that I have got to at least explore.”
And here’s a little bonus from four years prior, when past and future candidate Mike Huckabee, who may or may not have been called to run, explained a fleeting rise in his poll numbers by saying, “There’s only one explanation for it, and it’s not a human one. It’s the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of five thousand people. That’s the only way that our campaign can be doing what it’s doing. And I’m not being facetious nor am I trying to be trite.” Apparently, God was only teasing, because Huckabee did not in fact become president.
Of course, just because God tells you to run doesn’t mean he’s promising you’ll win. Maybe it’s his plan that you run and humiliate yourself in order to make you humble, which looks like it might have been the idea with Rick Perry in particular (though I don’t know that the humility lesson really took).
All kidding aside, I understand that deeply religious people pray for guidance and wisdom whenever they’re faced with a big decision, and whether to run for president is about as big as it gets. It helps if you can attribute to God the thing you want for yourself. And this is really just a religious version of the reason every candidate says they’re running. No one says, “I’m running for president because I’m pathologically ambitious, it’s something I’ve dreamed of since I was 10 years old, and this is the year I think I’ve got a real shot.” Instead, they all say it’s a calling of one sort or another. It’s because the challenges the country faces are so enormous that as someone who cares so deeply about America, they just couldn’t stay on the sidelines. It’s because they have a vision that can lead us into the future. It’s because this is such a critical time in our history. In short, they all say, “I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it for something much larger and greater.”
In other words, everyone who runs for president delivers a line of bull when asked why they’re running. Saying it’s because God demands it may at first blush sound particularly crazy, but it’s all the same.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, November 22, 2014
“Paul Ryan’s Poor Memory Fails Him Again”: Ryan Just Doesn’t Remember Current Events Very Well
I’ve long marveled at Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) unusually poor memory, and his latest complaints about immigration policy suggest his recall troubles are getting worse (via Jon Chait).
“We’ve gone to the president and said, ‘Give us time to do immigration reform, to work on the issue this year. We want to get this done.’ And this is the reaction he has to that?” said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the 2012 vice presidential candidate. “He had two years with a super-majority of his own party, and he didn’t lift a finger. And now he won’t give us a few weeks?”
It takes a truly talented individual to pack in this many falsehoods into a single paragraph.
“Give us time to do immigration reform”? Well, Republicans have controlled the House for four years, during which time they haven’t even held so much as a hearing on a piece of legislation. More to the point, the Senate passed a popular, bipartisan immigration bill 512 days ago, and soon after, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised the lower chamber would act on the issue. The Republican leader then broke his word and killed the reform effort.
In other words, Obama gave Republican lawmakers “time to do immigration reform,” and the GOP did nothing. Does Ryan not remember this?
“He had two years with a super-majority of his own party”? Actually, no, Democrats had a super majority in the Senate for four months, not two years. It’s a big difference.
“He didn’t lift a finger”? Actually, Democrats tried to pass the DREAM Act, which used to be a bipartisan policy, when they controlled Congress. Republicans killed it with a filibuster.
“And now he won’t give us a few weeks?” Well, President Obama not only gave Republicans all kinds of time, he also received no guarantee – from Ryan or any other GOP leader – that another delay would lead to real legislation. So what in the world is Ryan talking about?
It gets worse. Ryan also complained this week that Obama’s decision to govern on immigration policy means Republicans won’t govern on their own priorities.
Lori Montgomery reported on Wednesday on Ryan’s plans, now that he’ll be chairing the House Ways & Means Committee.
An overhaul of the nation’s tax laws will also rank high on the agenda when Ryan (R-Wis.) takes the helm of the tax-writing panel in January.
“We’d like to do it sooner rather than later, but we don’t control everything,” Ryan said in an interview. He cited Obama’s longstanding refusal to roll out his own tax plan as well as the president’s recent decision to forge ahead with a unilateral ban on the deportation of some undocumented immigrants – a move that has inflamed Republicans.
Again, comments like these suggest Ryan just doesn’t remember current events very well. In reality, Obama presented a blueprint for tax reform and asked lawmakers to work on details that could pass both chambers. A bipartisan tax-reform plan came together, at which point, House Republicans killed it.
That’s not opinion. It’s just what happened.
Complicating matters, Ryan prefers a more right-wing version of tax reform than the one outgoing Ways & Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) unveiled, with Ryan’s version focused primary on – you guessed it – tax breaks for the wealthy.
Chait’s conclusion rings true: “It’s just bizarre for Ryan to lament that Obama’s plans to make immigration enforcement more humane is costing him the chance to cut taxes for the rich.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 22, 2014
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