Thursday, June 18, 2015

The GOP should be careful what they wish for

Like many, I almost wish that the Supreme Court would rule in favor of the GOP plaintiffs in King v. Burwell so that they will soundly lose the Senate and the Presidency in 2016. But, no, I do not really wish that because 8.5 million would suffer just to teach the GOP a lesson.
 
Once the conservative legal strategy of constantly “repealing” Obamacare in the House of Representatives gave rise to King v. Burwell, Republicans in Congress probably had no choice but to become cheerleaders for, or active participants in, the ensuing litigation. Top Republicans filed legal briefs urging the Supreme Court to side with the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell, but are now beginning to realize the possible political implications of such a ruling. This Obamacare challenge – and the decision from the Supreme Court – has exposed the terrible predicament the entire strategy created for the GOP.

The case of King v. Burwell, as Josh Marshall noted recently, is owned by the Republican Party. They paid for it; they pushed it. They will pay negative consequences if they win the case – and they could pay negative consequences if they lose the case.

The Republicans will encounter problems if they win King v. Burwell – eliminating billions of dollars worth of insurance subsidies for 8.5 million people will boomerang on the GOP. In fact, even if the government wins in King and the federal subsidies survive for those states using federally facilitated exchanges, the GOP will suffer losses. 

A number of persuasive legal arguments point to a probable victory for the government. But one of the most likely paths begins with the Court concluding that the Affordable Care Act statute is ambiguous – that both parties’ readings of the law are plausible – and that deference should go to the government. As Chief Justice John Roberts suggested with his one and only question at oral arguments, this would leave the door ajar for a future presidential administration to reinterpret the statute, and discontinue the subsidies. If that knowledge becomes public, even if the government wins, people will begin to understand that if a Republican wins the presidency, they will lose their subsidies and, therefore, their health insurance. So even if the GOP wins the court case, they lose.

How will the 8.5 million people with subsidies become more aware that they may lose their insurance if a Republican wins the presidency? If the government wins the Supreme Court case, it will create a new conservative litmus test for Republican presidential candidates. If elected, will you shut down the subsidies? I suspect most of the candidates will yield to pressure from the right and promise to do precisely that. Most immediately, this promise becomes a general election liability for the Republican primary winner. If that person becomes president, it will turn into an administrative and political nightmare, forcing states and the U.S. Congress to grapple with a completely Republican-created policy fiasco.

That the case was conceived by conservatives and endorsed by Republicans has created an extensive paper trail tying the GOP to the consequences of a decision for the challengers. It has also forced Republicans to publicly pretend as if they can and will fix the problems that flow from a King v. Burwell ruling for the plaintiffs. Initially the idea was to foam the runway for conservative justices eager to void the subsidies; it has now become knowledge that the public will hold Republicans accountable for the ensuing chaos.

Among the pitfalls of the extended charade is that Republican presidential candidates will reject and condemn proposals to clean up a King v. Burwell mess – especially if they seem to be real solutions.
“Things can’t be turned on a dime,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn told Politico. “People can run for president, but we’ve actually got to solve a problem.” Cornyn may have been thinking of his fellow Texan Ted Cruz, who wants to use King v. Burwell as a pretext to repeal all of Obamacare. But Cornyn’s discomfort carries a whiff of inconsistency: Cornyn signed on to Republican briefs, first urging the justices to hear King and then asking them to void the subsidies. In January he eagerly anticipated that the Court would “render a body blow to Obamacare from which I don’t think it will ever recover.” 

Now Cornyn is realizing the consequences that the Republican Party may have to pay.

The promise for the Republicans of the King v. Burwell challenge has apparently faded. Republicans in Congress are quite likely incapable of solving the problem in a way that pleases conservatives, and will be little better equipped if a Republican president discontinues the subsidies on his own. Six months ago, Republicans claimed excitedly that the path to repealing Obamacare outright ran through a victory in King v. Burwell. Now they realize a ruling in their favor is likely a death knell for them in the 2016 presidential race.

As Rick Perry would say: Oops.

From TheWeek.com: “Republicans are very good at propaganda. But there are limits to such strategies. Southern Democrats attempted such a maneuver before the Civil War, when they attempted to simultaneously threaten secession and blame Republicans for breaking up the country. Abraham Lincoln famously skewered this logic:

“But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!" [Cooper Union Address]

“Much like the run-up to the 2012 election, it appears Republicans have drunk too deep of their own Kool-aid. They don't quite realize the raging political firestorm that will ensue if they manage to gut ObamaCare, or how easy it will be to pin the blame on them.” 

It seems that the best political outcome for Republicans would be to lose the case as conclusively and embarrassingly as possible.

But if they win, I hope the angry populace, after being adversely affected by the ruling, votes a landslide victory for Hillary and the Democrats, leaving the GOP high and dry.  I think they will.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/us/politics/gop-is-wary-that-health-care-win-could-have-its-own-risks.html?_r=0

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Conservatives are immoral

This is a simple, obvious, and brilliant observation from David Atkins at Political Animal.  It explains why it is a waste of time trying to argue against Republicans about the free market or big government or personal liberty or any other "conservative" principle – because those are not conservatives' true principles. David writes: 

Conservatives can not be upfront and honest about their immoral beliefs because only about 30% of the American population shares them, and it is not okay to say most of these things in polite society. That is why they are so angry, why they feel oppressed, and why they “want their country back.”

As with so much else in modern America, the experience of Ferguson and Baltimore has turned police brutality into a partisan issue. With a few rare exceptions, Democrats and progressives tend to fall on the side of the victims of discriminatory and violent behavior by police, while conservatives tend to go to bat for the authorities.

The primary reason for this is racism: conservative whites tend to see urban minorities as either subhuman or guilty of cultural sins that are supposed to explain their endemic poverty. In that context, any police violence is excused as the necessary quelling by any means of an aggressively violent population unable to fit into civil society and unworthy of the civil rights afforded to non-minorities. It’s an immoral worldview, but extremely common among base Republicans.

The other reason is discrimination against the poor in general. Conservatives wrongly assume that the wealthy are society’s job creators, and the poor are simply moochers who feed off the generous fruits of the holders of capital. The military defends the righteous and free producers in America against the socialist and Communist freeloaders outside the U.S., while the police vigilantly defend property rights and social order against the ever-dangerous fifth column of parasites from within. That Objectivist viewpoint is just as factually wrong and immoral as the racist one, but it is also far more acceptable within polite society largely because it’s so convenient to the wealthy elite and their enablers.

The problem, of course, is that these views run directly counter to supposed conservative stances on liberty and the 2nd Amendment. Republicans claim to be the defenders of freedom against big government tyranny. More disturbingly, they insist that deadly arsenals be permitted in every American home and even on the streets—primarily as a defense against the potential for infringement on civil rights by a totalitarian state.

But where we see the government most actively and destructively impinging on the rights of its citizens, not only are conservatives mostly silent on the abuses but they stridently stand on the side of the unaccountable state enforcers.

The reason is obvious, of course: the only government tyranny conservatives truly fear is one in which the poor – and particularly the non-white poor – have the ability to constrain their property rights. Examples:

Welfare for the poor via taxation is seen as a greater evil than corporate malfeasance (and corporate welfare).
Cliven Bundy becomes a hero for threatening to shoot law enforcement that holds him accountable for stealing water and land, even as killer cops are lauded for killing unarmed black men for no legitimate reason.
Honesty about this is necessary. We cannot move forward as a society without honest conversation, and if conservatives refuse to be openly honest about what they believe, it falls on us to provide that honesty for them.

But most of all, it’s time to stop pretending that Republicans care about liberty or government abuse of power. They really care about keeping poor people and minorities from having access to the same quality of life they enjoy, and they will use every lever of tyranny to keep it way – whether through the ballot box or the ammo box.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Give Peace a Chance

Diplomacy can be difficult and time-consuming, but unlike the Neocon 'war first' ideology (preemptive war), diplomacy works. This week, President Obama delivered a message of peace with Iran that Republicans do not want to hear:

This week, together with our allies and partners, we reached an historic understanding with Iran, which, if fully implemented, will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and make our country, our allies, and our world safer.

This framework is the result of tough, principled diplomacy. It’s a good deal – a deal that meets our core objectives, including strict limitations on Iran’s program and cutting off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon.

This deal denies Iran the plutonium necessary to build a bomb. It shuts down Iran’s path to a bomb using enriched uranium. Iran has agreed that it will not stockpile the materials needed to build a weapon. Moreover, international inspectors will have unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear program because Iran will face more inspections than any other country in the world. If Iran cheats, the world will know it. If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. So this deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification. 

And this is a long-term deal, with strict limits on Iran’s program for more than a decade and unprecedented transparency measures that will last for 20 years or more. And as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran will never be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon.
In return for Iran’s actions, the international community, including the United States, has agreed to provide Iran with phased relief from certain sanctions. If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place. Meanwhile, other American sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism, its human rights abuses, its ballistic missile program, all will continue to be enforced. 

As I said this week, many key details will need to be finalized over the next three months, and nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed. And if there is backsliding, there will be no deal.

Here in the United States, I expect a robust debate. We’ll keep Congress and the American people fully briefed on the substance of the deal. As we engage in this debate, let’s remember – we really only have three options for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program: bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities – which will only set its program back a few years – while starting another war in the Middle East; abandoning negotiations and hoping for the best with sanctions – even though that’s always led to Iran making more progress in its nuclear program; or a robust and verifiable deal like this one that peacefully prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

As President and Commander in Chief, I firmly believe that the diplomatic option, a comprehensive, long-term deal like this, is by far the best option – for the United States – for our allies – and for the world.

Our work – this deal – is not yet done. Diplomacy is painstaking work. Success is not guaranteed. But today we have an historic opportunity to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in Iran, and to do so peacefully, with the international community firmly behind us. And this will be our work in the days and months ahead in keeping with the best traditions of American leadership.

The reason it is difficult to believe that Republicans are seeking a "better deal" is because they have gone out of their way to sabotage the entire diplomatic process. Republicans are not even hiding their war agenda anymore making the situation with Iran a game of 'war or peace'.

Republicans never learn. The reality is that sanctions and military threats alone have not worked. Sanctions probably brought the Iranians to the negotiating table, but, as history has shown, they will not resolve issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. President Obama is correct – the door is open for a peaceful resolution.

Let's give peace a chance.