The Court’s Scott Walker Moment
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 22nd, 2012 11:08 pm by HL
The Court’s Scott Walker Moment
Garrett Epps, The American Prospect
On First Amendment Thursday, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court delivered an unsubtle warning to public employee unions: You are living on borrowed time.In Knox v. Service Employees International Union, the five"”Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel A. Alito"”reached out to decide a question that was not argued or briefed; their opinion all but begs right-wing advocacy groups and public employers to use its emerging First-Amendment jurisprudence to take down…
Health Law Puts System on Right Track
Donald Berwick, Washington Post
Robert Samuelson castigated President Obama in a recent column ["The folly of Obamacare," op-ed, June 18] for a lack of "judgment" in getting his landmark health-reform law passed. I profoundly disagree.Obamacare is helping our nation achieve health care that is excellent, accessible to all and affordable. In the 17 months that I led the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), I saw how this law is helping tens of millions of families and is finally putting our health-care system on the right track.
Romney, 2012’s Trojan Horse
Steve Erickson, The American Prospect
Mitt Romney is running as the Trojan Horse candidate of 2012, the big empty gift to America who will be wheeled into the gates of Election Night only for the bottom to pop out the next morning and whatever lurks inside to reveal itself. Watching his small disaster of an interview on Face the Nation this past weekend, we can only conclude he believes he will win the presidency by answering and offering nothing in the most calculatedly vacuous campaign since Richard Nixon's in 1968. The difference is that in 1968 the American public knew Nixon all too well and, compared with the specifics…
Obama Saw Corporate Job as Working for Enemy
Byron York, Examiner
Mitt Romney's main argument for his presidential candidacy is that if voters want a leader who can fix the economy, they should elect someone who knows and understands — and likes — business.Barack Obama, Romney says at every opportunity, is not that man. “The president has the most anti-business, anti-investment, anti-jobs administration I think I've ever seen,” Romney said last week on Fox News. “Some of these liberals say they like a strong economy, but then they act like they don't like business,” Romney added during a recent campaign stop in Colorado.
Holder Is a Target Because of His Race
Steve Kornacki, Salon
The House GOP’s drive to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress is headed for a vote by the full chamber next week. It will probably end up being symbolic, but the outcome seems preordained.Republicans hold a majority in the House, and few administrations officials besides the president himself arouse the kind of hostility on the right that Holder does. In the Obama/Tea Party-era, when every GOP office-holder lives in fear of being deemed disloyal to the tribe and facing a primary challenge, it’s hard to imagine any House Republican not giving the base…