As we've seen with Hobby Lobby and now with the recent DC Circuit Halbig decisions, it's not like Republicans are really able to contain their glee as people lose their access to Health Care due to the actions of Right-Wing Activist Judges.
Conservatives who used to constantly rail against "Activist Judges" are now having a
Good Long Hearty Laugh over these decisions.
Even though Hobby Lobby's "deeply held-belief" ran in contrast to Doctors and factual science, as well as the tenets and writings of their own religion, and also created brand new corporate religious rights - which you should expect people who vehement oppose Roe for "creating" the right of privacy would object to, but they don't - meanwhile with Halbig - a decision that would essentially punished Millions for a Proofreading Error - the Republican Judges making the decision actually spent the oral argument section of the case, spouting Republican Talking Points against the ACA.
http://thinkprogress.org/...
It’s important to understand just who these two Republicans are. Judge Randolph is a staunchly conservative judge who spent much of the oral argument in this case acting as an advocate for the anti-Obamacare side. Randolph complained, just a few weeks before President Obama would announce that the Affordable Care Act had overshot its enrollment goal, that the launch of the Affordable Care Act was “an unmitigated disaster” and that its costs “have gone sky-high.” At one point, Randolph also cut off Judge Harry Edwards, the sole Democratic appointee on the panel, to cite an editorial published by the conservative Investor’s Business Daily to prove the argument that Obamacare should be defunded.
So where, pray tell, does this leave the GOP in the eyes of the public as we move toward November's mid-term?
It is often assumed that the GOP's Congressional and State-house gerrymandering is far too deep and far too severe to overcome. That coupled with the Dems usually tendency to sit mid-terms out seems to have predetermined the outcome of 2014.
Yet, weren't these exactly same conditions in play in 2006?
What did we have then, the Howard Dean 50 Seat Strategy? Many, if you do recall, fought against it - including then DCCC head Rahm Emmanuel who felt it was throwing good money after bad.
http://truth-out.org/...
Monday 13 November 2006
The chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Rahm Emanuel, stormed out of Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean's office in May after an expletive-filled tirade against the DNC's spending too much money, too early, in "non-battleground states." Emanuel was concerned the DNC would be broke and not on the playing field in November. The opposite was true, and the playing field was larger due to the early investment.
Then, just as now, the vision of taking over the House seemed completely impossible and beyond comprehension to many of those in the upper rungs of power.
But. It. Worked.
So now eight years later are we trying, for a change, to repeat what DID work rather than yet again repeat what Didn't?
Has anyone ever head the words "50 State Strategy" since then? The fact is that you can't take advantage of having the wind-at-your-back if you don't even bother to unfurl your sails.
So then again, what the DNC or DCCC does or doesn't do is no restriction on what we here and elsewhere - the activist/amateur left - may choose to do. Their lack of action is no limit on our actions or it's effectiveness.
Next month in cities all over the nation Congress will be holding Town Hall meetings for the August recess. They'll be taking questions, and providing answer to their constituents. Four years ago the Right-wing used this situation to continue to stoke fear, uncertainty and doubt about the "dangers" of the ACA.
But now we have the advantage of experience. Now we know that over 8 Million Americans now have affordable Healthcare that they simply couldn't have qualified for, or afforded previously. Many of these Americans have had, some for the first time in years, a sense of security that many of them never thought they would achieve until they reached 65.
Hobby Lobby, and also cases such as Wheaton, threatens the ability of women to have cost-free access to contraceptives, whether they need them to address ongoing medical conditions or not. Halbig threatens the ability to millions of American, predominantly in red-states that refused to create their own individual Health Exchanges, to potentially losing their subsidies while the mandate requiring them all to purchase care remains in place, putting them in the dual jackpot of not only losing the policy they've just acquired this year, but also having to face the IRS tax penalty for not having care the following year after that.
And yet, Republicans in the State Houses - who could have avoided this by taking responsibility and making their own exchanges - and in the Senate - who just last week blocked the Hobby Lobby fix vote - and in the House - where they seem far more interested in suing the President for using his executive authority to stall provisions of the ACA that they wanted stalled - have all been chortling up their sleeve while these decisions have come down.
So maybe, when they come out to all their town hall meetings, we should ask them about it.
- Do they think that the Religious Freedom of a Corporation should trump the personal freedom of a women employees to be treated equally with a male employee's access to cost-free contraception?
- Do they believe that an Abortion is the Termination of a Pregnancy as specified by the AMA and American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology [who you would think should know] or is it something else that was never even mentioned in the Bible?
- Do they believe that anyone's "Closely Held Belief" should be given more weight in our law and under our constitution than facts, science and medicine?
- Just how funny is it for a women with polycystic ovarian syndrome to have to have one of her ovaries removed because she can't afford the birth control pill that would have prevented that condition?
And if they're answer is that it "only costs $9 at Target", that's already been shown to be a total crock. Prescribed Birth Control costs much more than that, and it's not really possible to switch and substitute on method for another because not all women are medically able to use just any method.
- Do they think it's a "good thing" that millions of people in their state will be unable to afford their private healthcare plans anymore if the DC Circuits Halbig ruling is upheld by the SCOTUS?
- What, if anything, do they think these people should do then? Go to the Emergency Room to handle their Hyper-tension, Heart Disease, Emphysema, Bursitis or Cancer and simply put their House on the Market - if they're lucky enough to have one - in order to cover the bill?
I'm sure we can come up with dozens of questions to ask Republicans who support Hobby Lobby and Halbig - then of course Film and post their Answers which I'm sure, even with their recent attempts at managing their message, will produce some results that are sure to Go Viral just when millions of Americans are growing more and more concerned with these issues and their confidence in Congress is now lower than the popularity of Jar Jar Binks.
Vyan