in 2009 obama told trump to not let a group of underage prostitutes pee on each other in a moscow hotel room

I feel like this is the kind of thing that 20 yrs ago, would have got Mulvaney immediately ****-canned. Maybe even 10 yrs ago. But today it doesn't even move the needle. Everyone knows what Trump is. And all of his allies are deplorable enough to support him anyway. So, someone caught him saying it out loud? Who is going to turn on him for that?

This is the kind of stuff Dems need to bring up more. Yeah, it probably won't do much, but I think it probably helps a little. These are the kind of simple things that idiots can follow.

You are human garbage, Dave

Diabolical!

I misunderstood the question. That was an instance in which SCOTUS overturned an earlier ruling in a different case, with two of the justices ruling differently in the second case than they had in the first. But IANAL so maybe I'm wrong

Actually how often has there even been a chance for a justice to reverse his specific earlier opinion? But my question was going under the assumption that if Roberts overruled the judge he actually would be reversing his earlier opinion rather than affirming it. Because he, I thought, specifically said that he was have voted the other way if he didn't have this tax thing that is no longer there, to fall back on. I realize that there is a good chance that I am missing something so that's why I am asking.

Then Trump ignored that advice and proceeded to have the time of his life. He knew that if he allowed the Russians to get kompromat on him then they would support him in his run for President. The underage prostitutes and the piss shower were a bonus. Its just another example of his 4D chess.

IANAL so I may be wrong but it seems to me that the 2017 TCJA didn't repeal the individual mandate penalty it simply reduced it to 0% and $0. The law remains on the books as a tax gathering instrument. Here's the text:

As far as I can see this is just setting a tax level.

Does that mean it could be moved back up above zero with less difficulty than passing a new law? If so you may have given me the answer I was looking for.

From what I understand I can't see why congress would have to do anything out of the ordinary to raise the level. They could simply pass the 2019 TCJA and amend the amounts again. If anything the method Republicans chose to eradicate the practical application of the law demonstrates the wisdom of Roberts' original decision to classify it as a tax.

re: 7 year old girl dying


https://twitter.com/LavenderNRed/sta...19040286302208


https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1073774679914151936


https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/stat...15029793914881

If Roberts reads this and uses your argument to strike down the judge will those who said "no one cares" buy a few books as penance?

no thanks i'm already good with algebra

If the ACA goes nowhere, this ruling won't be a campaign issue. It's only an issue if people lose their healthcare or pay out the ass for it and blame the GOP.

I actually agree in part with Sklansky on this one. IANAL, but Roberts upheld the individual mandate as a tax, and assuming I understood it correctly, essentially said in his ruling that if it wasn't a tax it would be unconstitutional. So now that it's not a tax, I don't see how he rules that the mandate is constitutional.

I expect him to rule that the law can be severed from the mandate, though, thus saving the rest of the ACA for the time being... But that's not a slam dunk, it's probably in the neighborhood of 70/30.

As for this logic that a tax of 0% is still a tax, I don't see that holding up. The key is: it doesn't really matter. If the mandate is a 0% "tax" then it's not really a mandate, anyway, right? There's no method of enforcement. If the tax is passed again by a future Congress and signed into law, then there is SCOTUS precedent that it's a constitutionally acceptable tax.

And this is a great practical argument for why the law must be considered severable from the mandate. We can't have massive laws that impact 1/6th of the economy constantly being killed and re-enacted simply based on whether a tax is in play or not. That's horrible for the country overall. IANAL, so I don't know exactly how you make that argument legally, but I'm guessing there's some way.

Essentially, we're facing a relatively low risk that Roberts screws us - but as someone who would be royally ****ed by losing the ACA, that risk still feels VERY serious. The real threat now is the further destabilization of the healthcare market, because uncertainty drives up premiums.

It's been clear for a while now to anyone paying attention (and I assume health insurance companies pay attention) that the GOP is not acting in good faith on this issue and is making no real attempt to support/improve the ACA or to keep this sector of the economy stable. They are attacking the law in any/every way, both legislatively and through the courts. They are doing things that have no purpose other than to sabotage it and destabilize 1/6th of our economy. Each time they showcase a new avenue for doing that, it adds additional uncertainty that has to be priced in to future premiums.

That's the damage that is almost guaranteed to come from this, regardless of how SCOTUS rules.

David- do you feel that half your age +7 years is a decent rule of thumb for dating?
If you break that rule should you buy a few books for penance?

Same thing with the personal exemptions.

They aren’t gone. They are just set to $0 right now.

If it's up to Roberts, he finds a way to maintain Obama care. This is pure politics. He hates Trump now because judges don't pardon disrespect, and conservative judges less so than the norm, and what better context to show off his power. Also, it should be easy to craft a solid legal defense of a law that's been functioning just fine, clearly following the clear intent of Congress, for some years already. If it's shaky, he can fill the opinion with garbage about deference to Congress and the need to control overexuberant executives.

My logic might be very faulty here so this is only a tentative opinion. I could well be talking absolute nonsense:

The point I was trying to make is that SCOTUS already ruled it an instrument of taxation - ie a tool through which a populace might be levied. Just as a bicycle continues to exist as a method of travel despite being at rest so the Individual Mandate Penalty continues to exist as a method of taxation despite it currently levying $0. Its fundamental nature remains unchanged, only its output varies.

Consider the argument against the law's constitutionality: That it violates the Commerce Clause by coercing individuals to purchase products lest they receive a penalty.* In as much as the Republicans have reduced the tax they have also reduced the coercion. In fact as far as I can see the two are inextricably linked. As you rightly point out the reduction of the tax to $0 has effectively neutered any real world application the Individual mandate might have, but that's quite the point. The very fact that this is true serves to perfectly demonstrate that the law's effectiveness is entirely reliant upon its being an instrument of taxation - which is exactly what SCOTUS ruled to be its constitutional basis back in 2012.

I confess I haven't fully read the Texas judge's decision so maybe I'm being a bit presumptuous but as I see it the current argument seems to be treading the same old ground. The crux of the argument seems to remain the nature of the penalty. In 2012 Republicans asserted that the penalty was an instrument of coercion, SCOTUS asserted it was a tax. Republicans now reduce what they consider to be a coercive penalty (and what SCOTUS determined to be a tax) to zero and say "see, it's no longer a tax" without mentioning the necessary corollary: which is to say "it's no longer a coercive penalty either."

We can all turn round and say that the mandate has ceased to exist in any menaingful sense, but this is true for both sides of the argument and seems irrelevant to the principle on which the mandate is based.

I guess this argument falls flat if there is some other way in which the Individual Mandate compels people.


*I think that's the argument.

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wat

“Ban SNL! Or force them to do political skits I approve of!”

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They're in the hands of your justice department Don.

I won't link it but it appears Trump is reading Breitbart.

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