Savetheplanet

The main event before the court is Tuesday's argument over the constitutionality of the individual insurance requirement. What do you think? Will the affordable health care act be upheld, or struck down? Should be interesting as this is an election year. The court will also release audio recordings of the arguments on the same day they take place. The case arrives at a high court in which ideology and political affiliation align for the first time in generations. The four Democratic appointees make up the liberal wing, while the five justices named by Republican presidents form a cohesive conservative majority on key issues. Even in the district courts, the first decissions fell along party lines. Democratic-appointed judges uniformly upheld the law or dismissed suits against it, while Republican appointees in Florida and Virginia struck it down. But in federal apeals courts, one Democratic appointee joined in the decision that struck down the insurance requirement. In two other opinions, conservative Republican-appointed judges voted to uphold the law. But in federal appeals courts, one Democratic appointee joined in the decision that struck down the insurance requirement. In two other opinions, conservative Republican-appointed judges voted to uphold the law. Seems to mew it could go either way. most people are focusing on the constitutionally aspect of the law. There are however a couple of facts that are left out of the discussion. One is that now you can stay on your parents insurance until twenty six years of age. The other is that seniors don't have to spend as much money on drugs as they used to. I wanted to just talk about the supreme court and their upcoming decision , but I can't seem to stop myself from offering an opinion on the affordable health care act itself. The U.S. spends about two-and-half times as much on health care as other industrialized countries, but it does no better on life expectancy and other measures than nations that spend far less. Even without the new law, you and I STILL PAY for those who don't have coverage. The Republicans had their chance to come up with a solution when Bush was in office, will they ever come up with a game plan to improve our health care? STP

Great, what could go wrong?

It's not working so well for Obama's re-election, but higher gas prices means lower consumption, and thats good for people with asthma, and good for the biosphere. But my guess is he will be re-elected, the senate will remain in democratic hands, and the house will be a republican majority. I still think that there is a chance that there will not be a GOP primary winner before the convention.The most troubling part about a brokered convention is it leaves the nominating process to be decided by backroom dealing. Instead of a mostly democratic process of electing the nominee, the nominee would be chosen by political hack. History might repeat itself, ( Rockefellr/Goldwater 1964 ) It did not work so well for Republicans in "64"When you have ideological fights inside the nominating process, you are dooming yourself for the general election. Should be interesting

Yeah it's nice to see you are still here also, coming back makes me feel like I am still part of a big dysfunctional family Just to resate so no one gets the wrong idea. I think we all want the same things, security for our children, safe water to drink, clean air to breathe, independence from to much government etc. So when I say I want fossil fuels to become more expensive, weather it's by an increase in taxes or the free market, I don't want people to suffer financially out of spite or mean to come across as negitive in any way. I truly believe that fossil fuels are affecting our health, our ecosystems, or simply put, our biosphere. I feel that we are not paying the true cost of a lot of things that effect our biosphere, (including our food) I don't want to debate ACC here again, we filled pages with our debate a few years ago, I learned a lot from that thread, but I think we should just agree to disagree on ACC. Nothing wrong with a little thread drift though. It seems to me that the Republicans want to make gas prices the focus of the Prezx. debate. Fine, the Dems want to Exploit the "war on women" so they are no better, it's an election year, which is very intriguing to me and very entertaining at the same time, also a bit sad. Anyway it seems Obama can take a very small part of the blame game on gas prices, but I feel he has very little controll over the price. You talk about a free market, is subsidies to oil companies a free market, are tariffs on Brazil energy sources free market? Seems to me that there is plenty of blame to go around, everywhere from OPEC, to speculators to consumers to politicians. A good example is where is the blame in the media for the consumer? When will America quit buying SUV's and other vehicles that get horrible MPG? When will America embrace the diesel car? My VW gets 50mph, I never see ppl. driving TDI's . On another note The GOP candidates were very entertaing this last week, I am from the south, and those guys trying to swoon the Cracker barrel crowd just did not work for me, as a matter of fact I thought it was really funny, can't get enough of Mitt talkin bout eatin grits and such like. then, to top it off Jeff Foxworthy campaigns with him, you can't make this sh!t up. You might not be a redneck if you are a multi million dollar comedian who campaigns for a millionaire from way up north. Don't mean to offend anybody with that

Whosure, we on the left do feel it's a good idea to keep oil prices artificially high. But thats NOT what is being done by this administration imo. I wish they would jack up the price of oil to reflect the real price, like most of the rest of the world does. Gas in America is SUPER CHEAP. Blaming the Dems for the high price is just playing politics, do you really think that if we started the pipeline today it would lower the price? Sure there are a few things that the Administration could do that would help, but it would be so minuscule that it's not really even worth discussing. Just open the front page of any paper these days and you can see why we need to ween ourselves off fossil fuels. (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Climate change. I wonder what the price of gas is today in London?

There are many reasons that the Republicans won the mid term elections, one of them, historically, is that the party that wins big in the Presidential elections, almost always looses in the mid term elections. The pendulum swings back and forth. The question in my mind is that if Romney wins the primary, will the base be energized and do the necessary ground work etc. that will be needed to get the conservative vote out? I know conservatives will vote for whoever the Republican candidate is, but will they be inspired? As far as the social issues that the candidates keep talking about, it works to rally the base, but come election time I think it will cost them. They are quickly loosing the female vote and lost the Hispanic vote long ago.

History is important, it does repeat itself from time to time. But I feel we are in uncharted territory right now, so many variables. Like I said earlier, no incumbent president has ever been reelected with unemployment over 8% Then there is the possibility of war with Iran, the economy faltering in late summer, the Republicans raising way more $$ than the Dems etc. Obama won some of the southern states in 08 Virgina, florida , N.C. If Romney losses the south in the primary and still wins the overall primary, can he hope to beat obama in the general election? I just read somewhere that 10 senators and 20+ house members are not running for re election, seems to me they get sick of spending most of their time trying to raise $ (dialing for $) Is it any wonder that Americas best and brightest don't want to run for office? George Will just wrote an op-ed stating that the GOP should give up on the 2112 presidential race and focus on the house and senate races. The 2112 election is really interesting though, I have never seen anything just like it.. It would be fascinating if there were a brokered convention.

hmm, not sure if I buy that one, (I know, you said--appears) It is an intriguing question though. Why he won't drop out? Does he dislike Romney or Santoum that much? Does he think it will improve his book sales? Does he hope to get a cabinet position from the winner?

So as a independent would you vote for Romney? Well I have never cited aRasmussen (sp?) pole but since they were the only ones that I saw that asked the question. --- 43% say that a new candidate should enter the GOP race. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_e So maybe thier is a chance for a different nominee at the convention. I think it's a shame the way our elections are conducted, it's bad for all of us, conservatives and progressives, if the were more parties and more candidates and we all voted our conscience, Obama, Romney, MCcain etc. none of them would be elected. Even though I disagree with a lot of the tea parties platform, I respect them and think their views and their voice are important for democracy

Looks like the GOP base is still having trouble warming up to Romney. If he is nominated. in the end, I think the base will have no choice but to vote for him, I have no doubt about that. they certainly are not going to vote for Obama. But what will the independents do? Is the GOP loosing independents during this ugly slugfest of a primary? More importantly, even though the base will vote for Romney (IF he gets the nomination) will they rally for him in a meaningful way ? As in, will they make phone calls, go door to door for him? I can't believe that the GOP establishment did not put forth better candidates, Haley Barbar seems like a better choice.

No incumbent president has ever been re-elected with unemployment over 8% Although current polls show President Obama ahead in many categories, I don't think the numbers will hold and he will drop in some of the polls. the election is a long ways off and anything could happen between now and then, Greece could falter, war with Iran etc. so progressives (in my opinion) should not be celebrating yet as some are. With all that said, assuming Romney is the GOP candidate, can he beat Obama? What do you think? He has a lot of money and with the "citizens united" ruling his superpac will almost certainly raise more money than the Dems. Support for the GOP among Hispanics and women are a problem though for now. Will he pick Mark Rubbio for a running mate to help win the Hispanic vote? Did he cut a deal with Ron Paul to name Rand Paul as VP.? And if so will it energize the young people enough for him to win? What about Romneys op-ed in USA three years ago calling for the rest of the nation to implement his Mass. health care plan? Will he still be able to prosecute and repeal the affordable health care act? My number one question though is--If Romney does not sew it up soon, is there any chance that another candidate could get nominated at the GOP convention? Like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Haley Barbor etc. ?

Wow you are a regular Sherlock Holmes, can't slide anything past you! Al Gore is our leader, we do everything he says so that someday us enviro nazis will be rich! Please don't tell anyone else that we fabricated the whole ACC thing and we really could care less about the planet. I mean, how else will those guys at The Academy of Sciences, NASA, NOAA, The Royal society, American meteorological society etc. rake in all that cash if you keep revealing our Al Gore led conspiracy on BON?

I agree, nice post.

How could you post that? You guys are in the minority! The majority of voters want HCR. The majority of voters overwhelmingly chose Democrats in 06-08. and your little photo of Obama in your Avtar is funny, you guys love to talk about how he has to depend on a teleprompter, yet you forget that Obama had no problem handling McCain in the debates, or that he went up to the Republican retreat in Baltimore and handed them their collective ass on a platter!

A new Harris poll reveals the Republican midset,: Two thirds think he's a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim-and 24 percent say "he may be the Antichrist." Even if those numbers are not even close and it 's a way smaller % it still speaks volumes about how sheltered conservatives are. What with their creation of a, "cocooned, conservative, religio-political subculture, complete with a massively lucrative publishing/broadcasting/blogging service industry, reinforces this with a cultural sledge-hammer". I really do think that this is the end of the conservative party as we know it, the GOP is eating it's own with this Tea party movement, who only seem to be able to defeat themselvs, they certainly can't defeat the Democrat's.