tuscl

[OT] Supreme Court Kicking Butt This Week!

Monday, June 30, 2014 7:38 AM
At least the judicial branch still has a modicum of integrity while the legislative and, especially, executive branch flounder.

25 comments

  • crazyjoe
    •
    10 years ago
    Teach me how to Dougy
  • georgmicrodong
    •
    10 years ago
    I don't know if I'd call 5-4 in these last two "kicking butt," especially since the rulings are so limited in scope. However, the one requiring warrants for phone searches is definitely a well deserved ass kicking for police departments everywhere who were abusive.
  • rockstar666
    •
    10 years ago
    The SC opened a huge can of worms on the Hobby Lobby ruling even though they made it clear they were limiting the ruling to a very narrow class of cases. What they've done is said the law applies differently to some people due to religious considerations. The ramifications of this are scary to me. Does this mean schools must accept students who haven't been vaccinated? Does it mean I don't have to pay my taxes if I'm clergy and don't support expeditionary wars, because some tax money goes to the military? In trying to play politics, the SC majority has made some really bad law.
  • Dougster
    •
    10 years ago
    @gmd: Yes, the ruling regarding warrants for cellphones was my favorite. Gives me hope that when the cases against the NSA finally make their way to the supreme's someone will finally have the backbone to stop the madness. In the ruling they even acknowledge that it will make LE's job harder but said privacy comes first.
  • deogol
    •
    10 years ago
    "What they've done is said the law applies differently to some people due to religious considerations." Well, they ban racial prejudices and then thru affirmative action allowed racial prejudice... so same ole same ole.
  • SlickSpic
    •
    10 years ago
    Interesting article on affirmative action. [view link]
  • Prim0
    •
    10 years ago
    This is why I'm always for removing power from government...look at the clusterfuck they make of everything. So if Hobby Lobby get's exemptions from some laws based on their religiosity (love that word), then do muslim taxi drivers continue to be allowed to deny rides to people with alcohol or dogs? The problem with most of our system isn't the application of the laws, but the fact that the laws exist! Why the hell does their need to be a national health care plan? What responsibility do I have to pay for someone elses' illness or them to pay mine? Why do I have to pay taxes to feed the poor or anyone have to pay them to feed me if I screw up? If everyone just had to pay for their own health care, this hobby lobby ruling wouldn't be necessary and nobody would have their panties in a bunch. Have people forgotten the way this country was founded and how it became a world power?! It wasn't because the founding fathers put in a bunch of non-sense laws to build a safety net for people. It put in good laws that limited government so it would stay out of people's ways and let them become productive. It worked great as long as government stayed out of it and has government has grown, look how far downhill everything has gone. It's so bad today, I can barely go get a lapper from a nice young lady in exchange for a few bucks without having to worry about breaking some law!
  • rockstar666
    •
    10 years ago
    You're already paying for other people's health care if you have insurance. Where do you think the money comes from when the uninsured sponge off the rest of us? Bottom line: health care IS a concern of our government because it effects us all. Whether true national health care is the solution, or Obamacare, or something else is a good debate. But to deny health care concerns are a proper role of government is playing ostrich.
  • crsm27
    •
    10 years ago
    Well the Health Care one is the one that is interesting. think about it. It shows that Obamacare was in the wrong on this topic. So now that will open the door for more opposition to this law. so will things not get implemented that should have with this law??? Are we getting screwed??? Now I was against this law from beginning. Because the stuff that went wrong and is going wrong I predicted. I am also am hear to tell everyone who bought the insurance from the government... Your premiums will increase next year because those exchanges wont be able to say afloat by themselves. Or we will be getting taxed some how to help those exchanges. But again that is another thread and topic.
  • zipman68
    •
    10 years ago
    @Che -- you pay indirectly if you have insurance the high cost/poor outcome of the US health care system. The US spends far more per capita on health care that virtually all other industrialized nations (I believe we beat Ireland -- yay -- though their health care spending is <50% of ours). These are facts from medical journals. Why are costs so high? The baroque insurance system we use and the way we deal with the uninsured. So I suppose you could argue that this is not paying for uninsured directly but rather paying a penalty for our inefficient system, but that becomes semantics. Folks who defend the US system like AEI invariably point to intangibles precisely because all quantitative measures say we suck. Big time. If you have to go for intangibles you've lost any reasonable public policy argument and are simply bullshitting. Whether ACA is a fix is a separate issue. Personally, I think we've replaced one baroque system with another. Contrary to crsm's assertion it is too early to declare it *worse* than pre-ACA. But I doubt it will be much better and it may still make things worse. The Hobby Lobby decision, which sucks, is also a separate issue. You like the idea of letting people off the hook because you don't like the law. But that is horrible policy. We shouldn't let folks declare "due to my religion I don't believe X is moral and the law mandates X so I don't have to follow the law." Try to change the law or, if you can find a lawyer make a legal argument that applies broadly, file suit to strike down the law for everybody. And if you lose you lose. Tough. There are plenty of laws I don't like. I'm actually not crazy about ACA, but we need to shift to a healt care system that works so going back to the "good ol' days" isn't the solution. This "I'm religious so I get special laws" bullshit is dangerous. Hobby Lobby was narrow but it is corrosive.
  • zipman68
    •
    10 years ago
    Damn, hit "post" w/o intending -- anyway -- you pay indirectly if you have insurance the high cost/poor outcome of the US health care system. The US spends far more per capita on health care that virtually all other industrialized nations (I believe we beat Ireland -- yay -- though their health care spending is <50% of ours). These are facts from medical journals. Why are costs so high? The baroque insurance system we use and the way we deal with the uninsured. So I suppose you could argue that this is not paying for uninsured directly but rather paying a penalty for our inefficient system, but that becomes semantics. Folks who defend the US system like AEI invariably point to intangibles precisely because all quantitative measures say we suck. Big time. If you have to go for intangibles you've lost any reasonable public policy argument and are simply bullshitting. Whether ACA is a fix is a separate issue. Personally, I think we've replaced one baroque system with another. Contrary to crsm's assertion it is too early to declare it *worse* than pre-ACA. But I doubt it will be much better and it may still make things worse. The Hobby Lobby decision, which sucks, is also a separate issue. You like the idea of letting people off the hook because you don't like the law. But that is horrible policy. We shouldn't let folks declare "due to my religion I don't believe X is moral and the law mandates X so I don't have to follow the law." Hobby Lobby case is narrow so it won't have that result, but it is still corrosive. Don't like a law? Elect people to turn it over or find a constitutional lawyer that can argue against it. And if you lose you lose. Tough. Don't cheer for the court saying "yes, this law can stand (mostly...as they decided in Natl Fed Indep Businesses v. Sebelius) but it doesn't apply to special religious people..." Hobby Lobby is nothing more than "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Not a good thing...
  • hotwheels
    •
    10 years ago
    I am impressed at the level of conversation. Even if I am a troll. Guess I better step up and write a review. I am with dougster on this. The cell phone ruling was very encouraging. Nsa is next. As for health care. Hmm I think I will leave this topic until I am sitting at the bar in my favorite club and NOT asking for a dance. Because I am a troll. Remember?
  • sharkhunter
    •
    10 years ago
    They must be sober right now. The ruling for Hobby Lobby was narrowly won. I'm afraid that if voters keep voting for more socialist leaders, we may have a true communist society right here in the US and China and Russia will have more freedom than Americans.
  • zipman68
    •
    10 years ago
    @Che -- wow, even when cut off for reasons I'm unsure of (is the new TUSCL layout correlated with other problems?) I get an essay as a response. I decided not to analyze you're reply deeply because 1) it had little likelihood of entertaining me; and 2) even a cursory reading showed major lapses in logic. Just to be clear: the US scores poorly in the ratio of per capita spending vs OUTCOMES. The latter is measurables like mean lifespan. This is amply documented in reliable medical publications. Back up your bloviating with citations from NEJM, JAMA, etc. and I'll take you seriously. Whether the ACA is a good or bad thing is another issue. Whether people should get a "get out of jail free card" because their religious is still another.
  • zipman68
    •
    10 years ago
    Ugh! ...your reply...
  • crsm27
    •
    10 years ago
    @Zipper "Whether people should get a "get out of jail free card" because their religious is still another" This just shows you the flaws with the ACA (obamacare). And how the big bill was too big!!! The famous quote... "we have to pass it so we know what is in it." Should have scared everyone and showed how bad a bill it is!!! But again another topic. @che "Obamacare has nothing to do with healthcare but is all about money, power and control. Unfortunately actual healthcare will suffer to an unimaginable extent." This is 100% correct. With the suffering of the actual health care will also kill out pocket books. The ACA (obamacare) really didn't do much to lower the costs of actual health care. It was all a power grab like you mentioned. The government saw that 1/3 of the US industry was related to Healthcare. So they wanted a piece of that pie and to control it.
  • farmerart
    •
    10 years ago
    I really must correct some of che's twaddle. Here are some real stats, not anecdotes. Average life expectancy for a newborn in 2012: 3 years longer in Canada vs. USA Infant mortality per 100,000 live births in 2012: Canada - 6 USA - 9 (50% HIGHER than in Canada) Percentage of GDP spent on health care 2012 (pre-Obamacare): Canada - 11% USA - 17% (55% HIGHER than in Canada) In Canada you will have a greater chance at starting life out alive. In Canada you will live 3 years longer. You will pay 45% LESS for these better results. Many countries (Japan, France, Scandinavian countries) do even better than Canada for less money.
  • jabthehut
    •
    10 years ago
    You can't draw a conclusion about a seeming correlation between a country's healthcare system and mortality rate. Other factors are involved e.g. race. Life expectancy of blacks in the US is about 4.5 years less than whites and blacks are about 13% of the US population whereas they are less than 3% of the Canadian population. You can make a comparison of how quickly a person's illness is detected e.g. the diabetes example above. Being in the Canadian healthcare system is akin to being in the VA system in the US. Anecdotaly, I had a friend who was disgnosed with Stage IV, small cell ling cancer when she went to the doc with chronic coughing. She was sent the same day to an Oncologist who immediately schedule extensive chemo and radiation treatment. She was told that she may survive for anothe 3 years but more thsn likely less. She lived 8 more years. Another friend got all of his medical needs fulfilled by the VA. He went to the VA with s chronic cough and was finally diagnosed 3 months later with esophogeal and was scheduled for treatment in another 3 months. He died 4 months after treatment began.
  • zipman68
    •
    10 years ago
    jabthehut dude...the plural of anecdote is not data. What DATA would you or Che propose to be the most appropriate measure of the efficacy of health care in various nations? I'm tempted to ask why US diabetes rates are so high if early diagnosis of diabetes is so good. But the answer to that is actually clear... This discussion is, of course, independent of whether the ACA is good policy. The discussion is also independent of Hobby Lobby -- Hobby Lobby says more about RFRA being bad policy than ACA being bad policy. RFRA could be rephrased as "all animals are equal but religious animals are mre equal..." If you don't like ACA try to repeal the law. Try to challenge it legally for everbody. Both have been tried and both were largely failures. But -- even if you think ACA is horrible -- don't cheer on the SCOTUS for declaring some people special and above the law.
  • jabthehut
    •
    10 years ago
    WTF zip? Where did I indicate that data is the plural of anecdote? Lots of people compare what Dumbocare will be to the Canadian and British systems, yet we hear about long waits in the latter two, the same as in the VA scandal. The two anecdoteS that I presented were from my personal knowledge, not from data, thus the use of anecdotaly. The data with the VA continues to grow and when we get the total picture the country will see what the dick in the WH and his fellow Dumbocrats have foisted on us.
  • zipman68
    •
    10 years ago
    @jabthehut - sigh. "Data is not the plural of anecdote" is a common reply to people who reply to data (i.e., what Art shared) with, well, anecdotes. Art seems to be a smart fellow, so I suspect he could reason through the complexities that might plague the comparisons being discussed. But simply saying "I knew two people an X happened to one whereas Y happened to the other" is meaningless.
  • mjx01
    •
    10 years ago
    yeh... if you get cancer (even very treatable forms) in Japan, they tell you sorry it's too expensive. If you have enough money or job connections, you come to America for you cancer treatment. Brittan isn't much better. They censor their internet so that their citizen can't access information on drugs available in the US (that the UK has deemed to expensive) so UK citizen don't demand access to them. (or you're unfortunate to wind up at a VA hospital) drug companies charge higher prices in America to help subsidize low price in other countries. wtf?
  • jabthehut
    •
    10 years ago
    Zip, do you have to try hard to make idiotic pronouncments or does it come easy? My friend who looked to the VA for medical care was a datum in the current VA scandal. The other friend was a datum backing previously mentioned data of better chances of the increased length of cancer survival in the US, based on esrlier detection, compared to other countries with so called universal health care. You are the one who wallows in obfuscation rather than eschewing it.
  • Prim0
    •
    10 years ago
    You guys have gotten away from the crux of the matter. Health care is not a right! You cannot put a gun to some doctor's head to take care of my broken leg...but that is what you are doing when you call health care a right. Is food a right? Are you going to force farmers to feed people who can't afford food? Health care is a commodity...just like Crude Oil. People have learned to discover it and use it to build wealth...just like crude oil. Health insurance is a gamble. The provider is gambling that you won't get sick and you are gambling that you will get sick. The provider lessens his risk by spreading it over a large pool of customers and figures out the balance between risk and reward. The government has as much right to force people to purchase health insurance (which increases the risk to providers until they will eventually have to go out of business, leaving us with the single payer [gooberment] system that liberals want) as they do to have people eat healthy foods and exercise regularly. If everyone had to pay for their own health care...like we do for petroleum products...then you'd see prices/costs going down (the way you see with elective surgeries [vision correction, plastic surgery, etc]). Remember everyone, that the Freedom we just celebrated a few days ago on the 4th comes with a price. Part of it is that you take responsibilities for your own choices. Nobody is responsible for you and what you do with your life. As soon as someone takes responsibility, for you, then they have some claim on your freedom. i.e. We pay taxes for your health care, so we want to make sure nobody drinks more than 16oz of soda. We also want to take away trans fats and anything else we deem to be bad for your health which would then cost us more for your health care. Smoker?....not any more...that costs the health care system too much. Strip clubs...not any more...too much chance of STDs. the list would go on and on. On a final note....I'm shocked that someone with the handle Che has any sort of a capitalist/libertarian/conservative sensibilities!
  • DoctorPhil
    •
    10 years ago
    what zipperhead68 really means to say is that these ‘christians’ should be on their knees thanking george soros for giving us obama and obamacare instead of complaining. but this isn’t the first time you socialists have seen such ingratitude from these ‘christians’ is it zipperhead68? “You suppose that Christianity is oppressed in Germany and that there is a rule by force and secret trial. Though this is not the case, the German State cannot be expected to tolerate incessant attacks, open or veiled, by ministers of the Christian faith upon its very foundations. There are recalcitrant pastors who seem to be unaware of the fact that they would have been shot, hanged or burned long ago if it had not been for the gigantic and successful struggle of Adolph Hitler to safeguard civilization in this country against the horrors of Communism. Therefore by attacking National Socialism, they are striking at themselves. - Dr. Reinhard Becker, in a letter to Niemöller (November 1937), as quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 135”
You must be a member to leave a comment.Join Now
Got something to say?
Start your own discussion