“ObamaCare”

21 States Are Refusing Federal Funding To Expand Medicaid Coverage To The Needy In 2014!

Ronald 2 Comments

21 states, all “red” Republican states, and governed by Republican Governors and legislatures, are refusing to expand Medicaid coverage for the the needy in their states for 2014, even though the federal government is covering the cost 100 percent for the first three years, starting next year, and 90 percent after that until 2020!

So millions of needy people will have no ability to have health care coverage under ObamaCare, as the Supreme Court gave the states the authority to decide if they wished to accept the Medicaid coverage expansion from the federal government.

Republicans, who claim to be “pro life” are willing to risk the lives of those less fortunate, including children, the elderly, and the poor, and yet they all claim to be “religious”, but are not acting with the compassion of Jesus Christ, particularly when the states have no cost for three years, and very little cost after!

So the following states have rejected this coverage:

Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
Georgia
Florida
Alabama
Mississippi
Louisiana
Texas
Oklahoma
Kansas
Nebraska
South Dakota
Idaho
Montana
Wyoming
Utah
Missouri
Wisconsin
Maine
Alaska

These states are governed by such “Bully” Governors as Bob McDonnell of Virginia; Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida, Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Paul LePage of Maine–all totally despicable in their lack of concern for their less fortunate constituents!

Additionally, six other states are still debating whether to accept Medicaid expansion paid by the federal government, including the following:

New Hampshire
Ohio
Indiana
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Tennessee

This means Republican Governors, including John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Snyder in Michigan, and Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania, are actively working to deny coverage to their poorer populations!

Only 23 states, including Republican Governors Chris Christie in New Jersey, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Susana Martinez of New Mexico, and Jan Brewer or Arizona are following through on commitment to the needs of their less fortunate, and those four Governors are to be commended, particularly Brewer in Arizona, who had a complete reversal in her view!

What a terrible state of affairs when conservatives and Republicans have no concern about those who are living but deprived, while at the same time, fighting to prevent abortions and force women to undergo ultrasound testing if they wish to end an abortion in the 24 weeks period allowed in the Roe V. Wade case. Additionally, North Dakota, Arkansas, Ohio and Texas, among other states, are trying to cut back, or have already done so, the amount of weeks of pregnancy in which a woman can have an abortion, and doing so in legislative sessions that are more run like a dictatorship, than a democratic means of passing legislation!

Texas Governor Rick Perry: The “Pro Life” Governor? NO, A Tragedy For Texas!

Ronald 8 Comments

Texas Governor Rick Perry was a massive embarrassment when he ran for the Republican nomination for President in 2012.

He is the longest serving Governor in America, having succeeded George W. Bush as the executive leader of the Lone Star State at the end of 2000.

He has become infamous for ridiculous, insensitive, and moronic statements, and outrageous actions in office, including suggesting that Texas secede from the Union, as it did in the Civil War.

He has a reputation as a “Pro Life” Governor, but that appellation is a mockery of reality!

This is a man who refuses to accept Medicaid expansion that is fully covered by ObamaCare, and therefore, denies millions of poor Texans, many of them Latinos, any access to health care, and this is out of spite, not wanting to accept federal aid that would cost the state of Texas NOTHING!

Here is a man who has the record for the most death warrants and executions occurring under his regime, and brags about the massive use of the death penalty, setting a record for executions in American history, and having no doubts as to the innocence of any of the people on Death Row, who face death, with the state government resistant to reconsideration of cases, even with new evidence!

Here is a state where any suggestion of background checks or other protections against gun violence are ignored and ridiculed, with any Texan able to carry firearms into public places, including schools, bars, and restaurants, and the gun violence level is one of the worst in the nation!

Here is a man who vetoes a bill passed overwhelmingly by a GOP legislature, mandating equal pay for women, many of whom are single mothers who need to support their children!

And here is a man who wants, with his party, to destroy Planned Parenthood in Texas, and shut down nearly all abortion clinics in a state with 26 million people, and the largest state in area, with the exception of sparsely populated Alaska!

And here is a man who forces State Senator Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, opposed to this legislation, to conduct a filibuster under inhumane conditions, with no food, water, bathroom break, or ability to lean against or sit down over nearly a dozen hours, and her filibuster ended early, but opposition of supporters in the Texas State Senate galleries and halls of the legislature the only way to stop this massive assault on women’s rights, including control of their bodies! And now, Perry is forcing another confrontation, determined to ram through this despicable legislation, and in so doing, lecturing Wendy Davis and showing total disdain and lack of respect for her and Texas women!

This man is an excuse for a human being, and will go down over history as a true tragedy for the Lone Star State, and Wendy Davis or Julian Castro (Mayor of San Antonio), or some other Democrat needs to run against him in 2014, and end the Reign of Rick Perry over the destiny of Texas!

Momentous Supreme Court Month Coming Up: Gay Marriage, Affirmative Action, Voting Rights Act Cases To Be Decided

Ronald 1 Comment

The United States Supreme Court is entering its last month of the present session, and as usual, is leaving its most blockbuster decisions to the last weeks of its term.

Every June is momentous on the Supreme Court, as for instance, the upholding of the Obama Health Care Plan last June.

But this June is possibly more crucial when looking at history, as well as the issue of civil rights and civil liberties!

The most important cases are on Gay Marriage, Affirmative Action, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

With so much at stake, with 13 states having legalized gay marriage, and more to come in the next year, it would be wonderful if the Supreme Court went the whole distance, as it did in Loving V. Virginia on interracial marriage in 1967. It would be a major victory for civil rights and civil liberties, and stop the right wing attempt to fight gay marriage dead in its tracks! The hate mongering would go on, but if the Court ruled that two men or two women can be married, it could not be overcome by religious extremists by law!

Affirmative Action has been in effect since 1972, and remains highly controversial, but is now in danger or being ended as a method to promote the advancement of minority groups and women.

The Voting Rights Act, first passed in 1965, and renewed in 1982 and 2006, is now in danger of being curbed or ended, on the false basis that the record of Southern and other states on voting rights in the past no longer applies, but that leaves open the possibility of new voting rights violations in the future.

It is assumed that there are four votes on the Court to uphold all three cases–those of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elana Kagan.

It is also assumed that three votes to prevent gay marriage and end affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act are certain–those of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.

It would be a major surprise if any of these seven votes ended up differently.

The two “swing” votes are those of Chief Justice John Roberts, who has become somewhat unpredictable after, surprisingly, backing ObamaCare last June; and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, the true “swing” vote alone, since Sandra Day O’Connor left the Court seven years ago.

Will Kennedy side with the liberals on the Court on all three cases? It seems highly unlikely at this point, but a good bet on gay marriage at the least, but the Court could choose to decide that case in a very limited manner, not an all encompassing decision.

We shall see on all three cases very soon!

Is The Obama Presidency Running On Empty Gas Tank?

Ronald 9 Comments

Four months into the second term of the Obama Presidency, it seems as if the administration has stalled.

Gun control legislation of any kind has failed to succeed.

Immigration reform is stalled, despite the efforts of Democratic and Republican Senators, including Marco Rubio of Florida.

The effects of sequestration are having a deleterious effect.

There are kinks in the ObamaCare planning for 2014.

There are questions about the improper use of the Internal Revenue Service toward conservative groups.

The Justice Department has intervened to subpoena records of the Associated Press, having to deal with, they say, national security.

The more one looks at the gathering storm, the more it looks as if the Obama Presidency may not have any more victories, and may face a lot of grief, some of it self induced!

More Years Of Education, And Yet High Levels Of Ignorance In America Persist!

Ronald 9 Comments

More Americans have graduated high school and attended and graduated two and four year programs at colleges and universities, and yet high levels of ignorance persist in the most advanced nation in the world, or are we?

Examples abound:

40 percent of Americans are not even aware of the signature achievement of the Obama Presidency, what the critics have labeled “ObamaCare”! And some think the Congress repealed it, and others think the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional!

21 percent believe a UFO landed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, and the government has covered it up!

14 percent believe in a monster called Big Foot, that it really exists!

65 percent cannot name even one Supreme Court Justice, not even the Chief Justice, when there are constant references to the “Roberts Court” in the news media!

30 percent cannot name who the Vice President of the United States is, and this has been shown on David Letterman many times!

35 percent do not know which century the American Revolution occurred in, and many cannot name who we fought in the Revolution!

6 percent do not know when Independence Day is, cannot find it on the calendar.

Many Americans cannot find any state of the Union on a geography map, or name the continents!

Many do not know who American fought in World War II, or point out where Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan are on the map, despite the fact that many Americans died in these wars.

Many Americans would be unable to pass the basic citizenship test all immigrants must pass, even though we are all insistent that they must know information many of our citizens born here do NOT know!

And many Americans persist in believing that Barack Obama is a Muslim, and think that Medicare is not a government program, when they say they do not want the government engaged in health care!

Many Americans do not know who their own Congressman or Senators are, and have no clue or understanding of the Constitution or Bill of Rights!

This is all very sad and disturbing, and makes one wonder about the “will of the people”, and their ability to make judgments about what American domestic or foreign policy should be!

Justice Harry Blackmun (1973), Justice Anthony Kennedy (2003), And The Likelihood Of Transformative Moment In Constitutional History Again!

Ronald 10 Comments

Associate Justice Harry Blackmun was a THIRD choice of President Richard Nixon for the Supreme Court in 1970 after rejection of Clement Haynesworth and G. Harrold Carswell, and Blackmun went on to make history in 1973, in authoring the decision in Roe V. Wade, arguably the most important decision in modern times on women’s rights!

Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy was a THIRD choice of President Ronald Reagan in 1988 after rejection of Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg, and Kennedy went on to make history in 2003, in authoring the majority opinion in Lawrence V. Texas, arguably the most important decision in modern times on gay and lesbian rights!

Are we about to see another transformative moment in the Court’s history and in constitutional history, with the upcoming case on gay marriage, being argued tomorrow and Wednesday, with Kennedy believed likely to continue to support gay advancement, and the hope that he will bring along Chief Justice John Roberts, who has a sense of history, and already showed leadership and courage in backing ObamaCare last June?

Many experts believe the Supreme Court will broadly back gay marriage, although they could just do a narrow decision on Proposition 8 in California, and on the Defense of Marriage Act as an alternative.

But this decision, if broadly based, could be of similar impact, as Loving V. Virginia was on interracial marriage in 1967, or Brown V. Board Of Education was on racial integration of public schools in 1954!

ObamaCare At Three Years: A Significant Moment In American History!

Ronald 5 Comments

It has now been three years since ObamaCare became law, and the full extent of the law will take effect in 2014, but already millions of Americans have benefited from the provisions, including children covered to age 26, lower drug costs for seniors, and pre-existing conditions no longer a reason to deny a child or adult’s ability to gain health insurance coverage.

The health insurance companies have raised rates in a desperate attempt to harm ObamaCare, and the Republican House of Representatives has voted 36 times to repeal the health care legislation, but it has all been for show, and there is no way that ObamaCare will be repealed, even if the Republicans gained the Senate in 2014, as the President would be able to veto a repeal, and the GOP could never gain a two thirds override to overcome the Presidential veto.

And any attempt to repeal, were it possible to achieve, would so disrupt the health care being made available to up to 50 million or more people, that it would be a crime to take away what has been gained by those who did not have health care coverage before!

Health care has been transformed forever, thanks to the support of Chief Justice John Roberts, who had the decisive vote last June, and he will go down in history in a positive light, and it is hoped that his views on constitutional matters will become more moderate, and that he will back gay marriage, support continuation of the Voting Rights Act, and take an enlightened position on other issues.

But even if he does not, Roberts has changed the course of history, with the assistance of the four Democratic appointments to the Supreme Court!

Marco Rubio Joins Ted Cruz And Mike Lee, Threatening To Shut Down The Government Unless ObamaCare Is Defunded!

Ronald 8 Comments

Florida Senator Marco Rubio has indicated that he is flirting with the Tea Party Movement, which helped to elect him to the Senate in 2010, by his threat to refuse to support a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year, unless ObamaCare is defunded completely, which would cause great harm to tens of millions of Americans.

Rubio joins Tea Party radicals Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah in this disgraceful tactic, and in so doing, he is rapidly destroying any chance of being the GOP Presidential nominee in 2016, and even if the GOP was crazy enough to nominate him, he would lose in a landslide!

These Tea Party radicals have no conscience, no ethics, no sense of propriety in their public actions, and have absolutely no concern about those less fortunate, only adding to the horrible public image of the Republican Party!

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia And “Entitlement” To Voting Rights: An Outrage!

Ronald 10 Comments

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who has been on the Supreme Court for 27 years now, has become a literal nightmare with so many inappropriate, arrogant statements on and off the Court in the past few years!

His latest outrage was in oral argument on the Voting Rights Act today in the Supreme Court, when he stated that the Voting Rights Act was a “racial entitlement”!

In so stating, he demonstrated that he has learned nothing about past racial discrimination and denial of the right to vote, which necessitated passage of that law in 1965!

With the record of many Republican states, particularly in the South, infamous for past discrimination and Jim Crow segregation laws when they were Democratic states, moving to make it more difficult to vote, as with Florida and Governor Rick Scott as just one example, how can anyone justify getting rid of the requirement of accountability on voting law changes by the federal government?

Voting should not be an “entitlement”, as it is a right that all Americans over the age of 18 should have, and no voter ID laws should be used to disenfranchise anyone, or require a 102 year old woman to have to wait six hours to vote in Florida or anywhere else!

Sadly, the Republican majority Supreme Court is likely to knock down the Voting Rights Act, which will stain the court of Chief Justice John Roberts, if it happens. Roberts’s reputation, improved by his support of ObamaCare last June, rides in the balance of what happens on this, as well as the gay marriage and expansion of the Citizens United cases that are before the Court!

It also could be argued that Scalia may be showing signs of instability at his age of 77 next month, and it will be a great day when this most right wing member of the Court in nearly a century finally retires from the Court at some point in the future!

Rick Scott,Jan Brewer, John Kasich Accept ObamaCare Medicaid; Rick Perry And Nikki Haley Still Show No Concern For Those Without Health Care!

Ronald 9 Comments

A total of seven Republican Governors, including Rick Scott of Florida, Jan Brewer of Arizona, and John Kasich of Ohio, along with the Governors of New Mexico, Nevada, Michigan and North Dakota have dropped their opposition to ObamaCare in the form of federally backed funds for expanded Medicaid for their poor citizens, with Scott’s announcement the most stunning reversal of all, but with gubernatorial elections around the corner in 2014.

This has led to fury among Tea Party radicals who cannot believe that Scott has reneged on his Tea Party followers, and it might lead to a primary challenge to Scott, who has also reversed course on education funding. So this could make it harder for him and other Republican Governors to win another term in office, and give Democrats the chance to retake the Governor’s chair in many “Red” states, many of whom went that direction in 2010, giving the Tea Party prominence that it has used to try and take America back to the 19th century!

But two prominent holdouts remain–Governor Rick Perry of Texas and Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina— representing two states that are, overall, more degraded in their poverty statistics than most other states. These two Governors are making victims of millions of citizens, who are being condemned for being poor, an absolute disgrace!

And meanwhile, Tea Party Senators are becoming more outrageous in their rhetoric, including Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, with the latter being coined by some the “new Joseph McCarthy” , due to his wild and false accusations against former Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Barack Obama’s choice to be Secretary of Defense. These two men have no problem in being reckless in their behavior, as both are extremely ambitious, and think they will be President in 2017, a total delusion on their part!

It is people like Paul and Cruz, along with Perry and Haley, that demonstrate that the Republican Party is doomed in the future, until and when they purge these hateful, despicable figures out of the equation of the future of the GOP!