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Comments Posted By Mopshell

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Corporations Are Religious Extremists Too!

The single payer option does exist within the ACA and at least a couple of blue states are talking about taking it up in the near future. It seems to me that the long-range plan was to slot it into the ACA with the expectation that it would be the states who drive it into being just as they are doing with equal marriage rights and marijuana legalization. Actually, I can see how marijuana legalization might well be the ideal companion to single-payer in that the first would generate enough tax revenue to fund the second!

While I prefer universal health cover co-existing with private insurers rather than single-payer only, American health insurance companies have been so utterly immoral that I can sympathize with anyone who wants to rid the country of these parasites!

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 7:57 am

Give Del a hug for me! Oh it’s so lovely to be in contact with you both again!

I’ve seen you at Daily Kos too. Did you catch my Australiana 101 posts? I think you’d enjoy them.

Hugs to you both. xo

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 7:48 am

That scorn has spread to the public at large and they are striking back! Hobby Lobby, meet people power!

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 7:43 am

Good for you, sillylittleme!

Apparently Hobby Lobby are trying to reply to every post on their FB account but are having trouble keeping up with the sheer volume of the protest!

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 7:40 am

I’ve read of a couple who have already taken to protesting outside their local Hobby Lobby. They spoke with one woman who knew nothing about the case. When they explained it to her, she told them she was never shopping at Hobby Lobby again and, true to her word, turned around and left!

Another lady, who owns two online craft sites, put up notices on each one to say that she did not support or buy from Hobby Lobby. She also pasted the same sign on her FB account. She said that within seconds of posting it, she was receiving messages of support from all over and people were re-posting her sign to their accounts.

Another woman said she went to Hobby Lobby’s FB page where she found hundreds of people leaving messages protesting their case. Apparently Hobby Lobby was trying to answer them all but couldn’t keep up with the volume.

Another protest is being organized for a new Hobby Lobby store due to open in Florida in early August. That grand opening will be like none they’ve ever had before!

People online are talking about alternative businesses and checking their backgrounds before deciding. Michael’s was an early contender but lost out when it was discovered that it was owned by Bain. Jo-Anne’s now seems to be the favored online venue with many recommending smaller, local craft supply stores.

It’s an extraordinary response and shows the real energy and force of people power in action. I doubt Hobby Lobby will have been expecting this and it will be interesting to see how they try to deal with it. They’re hardly likely to back down and may well go out of business at this rate. It will certainly put the brakes on any other company trying the same ploy!

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 7:36 am

I’ve really missed you RSG – it’s so very good to see you here! (◕‿◕)

» Posted By Mopshell On June 30, 2014 @ 11:28 pm

What Can Be Done to Stop Children From Crossing Our Borders?

We’d do so much better by these kids AND the country if we put out requests for help; everything from clothes, food to accommodation and medical care. It would show those with loud, vile voices that they are NOT in the majority, that their hateful attitude is NOT the norm and we’d be taking better care of these children.

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 11:34 pm

I just saw a headline about an armed tea party militia stopping a busload of these children – I couldn’t read any further; I find it too distressing.

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 11:28 pm

Phew! Thanks so much for the help, you are a gem.

So what do you think of them?

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 11:21 pm

So would I

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 8:47 pm

Can you see this one? I have my fingers crossed…

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 8:46 pm

Darn it! I’ll see if I can find another copy of it.

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 8:25 pm

How does focusing on the symptoms help the children who are here?

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 8:22 pm

Thank you! I managed to get it to work!

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 8:20 pm

For me these questions aren’t important at all, not compared with “What do we do with them?” “How are they to be treated?”

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 8:17 pm

This ads were made in Australia. A country surrounded by ocean, the only way for refugees to reach here is by boat. Many of them are children. Many of them drown in the attempt. But, rather than a humanitarian issue, it became a political issue with the right wing exploiting the xenophobia of its followers by portraying these poor wretched souls as somehow sub-human. The Left is countering this with, among other things, an education program and that’s where these ads come in. Just substitute ‘boat people’ for ‘illegal aliens’ as you watch:

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 8:05 pm

Thank you to you and SearingTruth. With the focus on why are they coming here and how do we stop them, I was losing hope of any thought of how we could help them. America has a population of some 319 million and can’t absorb some 40,000 children in desperate need?

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 7:38 pm

Is it the embed link I copy? I’ll give it a try, thank you sillylittleme!

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 7:25 pm

This is a refugee crisis and, as such, our first priority as humanitarians is the children’s welfare. The problems in their home countries and how they manage to get here are secondary considerations.

My first thoughts are that emergency shelters should be very short term. We should be putting out the word across the nation: who will help to accommodate these children? Suitable places might include orphanages, boarding schools (English boarding schools took in many Jewish refugee children during WW2), even retirement homes where the residents are physically and mentally active (an “adopt a grandchild” program). Small groups of children in caring surroundings would be the ideal rather than keeping sad, lost little souls altogether in a huge group.

Advertise for volunteers to help: certified child psychologists, medical personnel (the armed forces have volunteers who may be willing to help), child workers including teachers and retirees.

Once they are accommodated and looked after, then is the time to find family members and, if they can’t be found or there are none, foster families. Some places accommodating them, like boarding schools and retirement homes, may be happy to keep some with them.

These are all very broad suggestions but that’s how brainstorming begins – any and every idea needs to be aired and we can refine later.

I’d like to show you all a couple of videos that are very germane to this issue but I don’t know how to embed a video yet. When I learn that, I’ll include them.

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 9:13 am

The Whys And Wherefores Of Suing The President

If I’m brutally honest with myself, I have to say that’s true. Like too many others, I keep expecting SCOTUS to do the right thing even though, time and time again, they disappoint us. My real fear is that this SCOTUS will ignore all case law and the Constitution and let Boehner & co go ahead. They didn’t when a case was brought against Obama in 2011 so I’m clinging to that recent history. My other slim hope is that, because Boehner doesn’t want this to go ahead, he can somehow slow it down or even sabotage it some way.

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 11:49 pm

My research is coming up with exactly the same conclusions. (Thank you for the link!) I just recently read that the Executive branch has sovereign immunity which covers all official actions taken while in office. This link:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/06/can_you_sue_the_president.html mentions several attempts to sue presidents from JFK to Obama (2011 – case dismissed for lack of standing).

It’s obvious from these examples that the president can’t actually be sued for any action he takes as part of his job as chief executive. The reasoning here, as solidified by the 1982 Supreme Court decision in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, is that “subjecting the president, who routinely makes decisions that alter the fortunes of millions of citizens, to such lawsuits would cripple his ability to preside effectively and distract him from the job.”

The president can, however, be sued for personal actions made outside of his job (as in the cases of JFK and Clinton) but that isn’t the case here.

As your link detailed, inter-agency cases have gone to court but never an inter-branch case as that would be like the government suing itself. In this instance it wouldn’t be the whole Legislative branch, nor even the whole House and past cases involving only some members have never been able to prove standing.

Bachmann, who seems to have taken on the role of spokesman for this current proposed action and who’s talked about suing the President since last year at least, has a “Law degree” – I put this in quotation marks because her “degree” was from the now-defunct Oral Roberts University which taught law as it pertained to the Bible. That she is clueless about real law is hardly surprising – she’s clueless about most things!

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 7:15 am

Thank you for such a lovely, welcoming and encouraging comment! American politics can be very confusing, even more so when it’s so different to your home government. I empathize with you because I’m Australian. When looking at American politics, I have to break everything down into simple components and then put them together in a way I can understand. It seems that’s an approach that works for both of us. (◕‿◕)

» Posted By Mopshell On July 1, 2014 @ 6:26 am

I think there’s more than one kind of tea partier. Those who want to take America down are headed by Ted Cruz who would dearly love to ruin the country so he could climb up on the wreckage and take over as dictator. He’s dangerous and more than enough to justify your gut feeling.

» Posted By Mopshell On June 30, 2014 @ 11:15 pm

I don’t think there’s any chance that the GOP will get rid of Obama. If they did, they’d then have to go after Joe Biden too so the Speaker of the House becomes the de facto president. Since that would result in a nationwide backlash of a size never seen before, it would cause absolute chaos.

The barriers to their successfully suing the President are monumental (and I believe Boehner knows this). They’d have to first prove standing which is next to impossible. If they actually managed to get over that hurdle, I believe John Boehner would retire so the whole enterprise would be left in the hands of someone not equal to the task and they’d botch it. What’s more, it would drag through the courts until Obama’s term was over at which point it would be dropped because there’d be no point to it any more.

There’s a slim chance that the tea partiers might put up the interminable delays but it’s far more likely that they would get impatient and go straight for impeachment instead. That would inevitably fail in the Senate and the backlash to the Republicans politically would consign them to political wilderness for years to come.

» Posted By Mopshell On June 30, 2014 @ 11:10 pm

I think Boehner is very much on the verge of leaving them to it. He’s a very unhappy little Speaker who is desperately trying to stem the rising tide of “Impeach!” from the tea partiers before he has a chance to depart. I think it’s highly unlikely that he will stand again for the Speakership and will retire before his next term is completed.

» Posted By Mopshell On June 30, 2014 @ 10:59 pm

Unfortunately I fear that that is near impossible. Elected members are safe-guarded from lawsuits. Anyone suing them would not be able to use their voting record or anything said in the House. Anyone planning to sue must also show standing, that they are materially harmed by Republican members’ actions and, without access to any official records, that might be impossible to do.

Ironically, the best thing to do might well be pushing them to impeach or shut down the government. Both actions have been shown to cause an enormous backlash in public opinion which would translate at the ballot box into many lost Republican seats. How to get them to do that though I’m not sure. I welcome a conversation about it though!

» Posted By Mopshell On June 30, 2014 @ 10:54 pm

Unlike the passage of legislation, filing a lawsuit need not involve the Senate. Boehner is proposing that the House be the plaintiffs in this action and would therefore see no need to defend their obstructionism – it is up to the defendant to defend. Boehner (or more accurately, the House Republicans pushing for this) is wrong of course; if the suit ever did get standing (and that’s highly improbable) the issue of obstructionism would come up.

You’re absolutely right in saying that the Constitution has one remedy and one remedy only: impeachment. Boehner definitely does NOT want that attached to his name! To deflect them, Boehner has come up with this bauble (perfect word!) and we all know how tea partiers love shiny things! If they actually stopped and thought for 10 seconds, they’d realize that this is a ploy to distract them but they’re not known for being smart.

However, I don’t think it is so much because Boehner wants to keep the job of Speaker – at least, not beyond this current session – but because he does not want to conclude his Speakership with this almighty pile of stinky manure on his record. I think Boehner has had about enough of the tea partiers. It must be enormously stressful trying to keep them from running amok and I think he’s reached the end of his tether. He’s already said he’s unlikely to complete a full term if re-elected and may not seek the Speakership again. That’s a very serious statement and I don’t think he made it lightly. There’s plenty of evidence to show he’s speaking the truth this time.

» Posted By Mopshell On June 30, 2014 @ 10:47 pm

It’s neither simplistic nor naive and it’s a question that should be addressed (I’m sorry I didn’t include it in the above article!).

Mandate from the people: Boehner and his fellow Republicans are assuming that, by virtue of being the majority in the House, this gives them the mandate to act on behalf of all those who voted for them. Add to this the fact that the tea partiers believe all real patriots are with them (“real” patriots in this instance being synonymous with “real” Americans, the only Americans they recognize as being legitimate) and you have their delusion of a mandate.

Who will pay for it?: Taxpayers will be paying for it. I’m surprised I haven’t yet seen a petition which simply declares that, as a taxpayer, the signees object to their taxes being used in this way. The President’s powers do not extend to determining who can pay for this and, even if they did, he would not use them because it would be seen as a gag order. I think he’s quite happy for this to go ahead because their chances of proving standing are slim to none and the public at large are likely to side with him as they did when Clinton was impeached.

» Posted By Mopshell On June 30, 2014 @ 10:30 pm

I don’t think the tea party faction is bothered by issues of timing; they are driven by their beliefs which includes the belief that America is with them. As far as they are concerned, impeachment is long overdue and, if suing the President doesn’t work for them, they’ll push for impeachment immediately – they really are that crazy. If Boehner throws in the towel early next year (as I believe he will), or loses control over them any time before November, the tea partiers will run amok. I hope that does happen before the midterms because it will have a bigger impact on the elections than anything else possibly could.

» Posted By Mopshell On June 30, 2014 @ 10:12 am

The Court Ruling that Could Kill ACA

My reflexive answer to your final question is “never” but I’m wondering how they will react to the supplemental bill the President has just presented to Congress to deal with the flood of refugees at the border? What the Republicans basically want is in that bill but will they want to obstruct Obama even more than solve the problems at the border? As Obama said, “This is a test case”.

» Posted By Mopshell On July 10, 2014 @ 3:02 am