Perhaps the worst constitutional defense of Obamacare you will ever read

Now that the Supreme Court has officially taken up the question of Obamacare, we are in store for even more legal analyses attempting to predict which way the justices will rule, or argue which way they ought to rule.

A quick prediction of my own: Few, if any, of these analyses will be as worthless as the one Einer Elhauge offers in today’s New York Times.

Elhauge, a law professor at Harvard University and founding director of Harvard’s Petrie-Flom Center in Health Law Policy, makes one point that is patently — inane? specious? vacuous? let’s go with specious — and one point that unintentionally undercuts his own argument. Let’s look at each.

First, the patently specious point:

For decades, Americans have been subject to a mandate to buy a health insurance plan — Medicare. Check your paystub, and you will see where your contributions have been deducted, whether or not you wanted Medicare health insurance.

Many opponents dismiss this argument because Medicare (unlike the new mandate) requires the purchase of health insurance as a condition of entering into a voluntary commercial relationship, namely employment, which Congress can regulate under the commerce clause. Thus, they say, the Medicare requirement regulates a commercial activity, whereas the new mandate regulates inactivity.

Now, I have followed the Obamacare debate pretty closely, including attending the oral arguments at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals this summer, and I have never heard or read even a single person offering the rationale that Elhauge claims “many opponents” of the law make. However, I am willing to stipulate that the director of a center on health law policy may have been privy to more arguments than I have been, and that there may in fact have been some Obamacare opponents who have concocted such a line of reasoning.

Anyway, that’s not what makes his point patently specious.

What makes it specious is that Elhauge would have the reader believe this is the best, or maybe only, argument about the difference between Medicare and Obamacare. That is bunk. The best, clearest argument that’s been made about the distinction between Medicare and Obamacare is that Medicare is a government program, and the paycheck deductions are a tax to pay for that government program.

No one on the right argues that Congress can’t enact a tax to pay for a government program such as Medicare. What nearly everyone on the right argues about Obamacare, however, is that a) health insurance is a private product, and there’s no constitutional authority to mandate the purchase of a private product; and b) the consequences written into Obamacare for failure to comply with a mandate are not a tax but, in Congress’s own language, a “penalty.” Congress used the word “tax” elsewhere in the law, but not in the section that enforces the mandate. (Whether that’s because, as in other cases, congressional Democrats were sloppy in drafting the law or because they simply didn’t want to be seen enacting a tax is debatable, but irrelevant to the legal discussion.)

So, to distinguish between Medicare and Obamacare, one doesn’t need to resort to the tortured argument Elhauge offers up so that he can knock it down. There’s a much more straightforward and prevalent argument he avoids entirely, while making sure to weave the specious “anyone who has engaged in any activity that affects commerce must buy health insurance” claim into the rest of the piece.

Now, about his unwitting undercutting of his own position. Here’s what Elhauge writes:

Opponents of the new mandate complain that if Congress can force us to buy health insurance, it can force us to buy anything. They frequently raise the specter that Congress might require us to buy broccoli in order to make us healthier. …

There are, of course, limits to what Congress can do under the commerce clause. If it tried to enact a law requiring Americans to eat broccoli, that would be likely to violate bodily integrity and the right to liberty. But the health insurance mandate does not require Americans to subject themselves to health care. It requires them only to buy insurance to cover the costs of any health care they get.

And Elhauge thinks conservatives are the ones making distinctions without differences?

Here, I defer to Mickey Kaus, because I’m not sure anyone can improve on his rebuttal to this point:

Well, OK then! As long as we can just leave it rotting in the fridge.** … But it’s a little suspicious — and surely not a selling point — that under Elhauge’s argument the only limits on government would be the rights — like “bodily integrity” and privacy — that liberal lawyers have dreamed up but not the limit — i.e. whether or not something is “interstate commerce” — the Founders dreamed up.

** — Rotting broccoli might breed disease and suppress appetites, inhibiting interstate commerce. Could Congress ban every means of disposing of the broccoli (that it has made you purchase) other than eating it? Is that any different from making you eat it? To enforce the right to “bodily integrity,” would the courts have to step in and void at least some of these rules for broccoli disposal, even if they are obviously regulations of commerce and do not, in themselves, violate bodily integrity? Elhauge’s rule may not get the courts out of the complicated business of meddling with federal regulations and striking down some of them. They’d just be meddling on grounds that he likes. (emphasis original)

Is this the best the law’s most erudite defenders can come up with?

– By Kyle Wingfield

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217 comments Add your comment

Old Timer

November 17th, 2011
2:14 pm

And Bart Abel, there is a difference between a Republican and a Constitutionalist. While I may support some things that the GOP does (like oppose this abortion of a health care law), I do so with a principled argument that Federal mandates to buy a private product are NOT Constitutional, no matter who is or was for them.

Yes sir, Dave R.—I mean, Tiberius.

Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)

November 17th, 2011
2:23 pm

Bart’s obviously desperate to play that race card…typical of libtards when they discover they’ve lost.

One might suspect Bart is the racist, since he equates certain types of music with particular races.

Bart Abel: Incompetent. Racist.

saywhat?

November 17th, 2011
2:24 pm

“And Bart Abel, there is a difference between a Republican and a Constitutionalist..”

Yeah, a “constituionalist” is just like a “libertarian” or a “conservative” – a republican with just enough shame to be too embarrassed to admit it

td

November 17th, 2011
2:24 pm

Welcome to the Occupation

November 17th, 2011
2:12 pm

Would you please give up this ridiculous 99% vs 1% bull. It is the 47% (non tax payers) Vs. the 53% (taxpayers). The 47% parasites want the government to GIVE them a free college education in the Ivy League, FREE health care, Free home, Free Cell phone, Free internet connection and FREE food while they do not have to work. They want all these freebies and just tax the 53% more for them.

td

November 17th, 2011
2:27 pm

saywhat?

November 17th, 2011
2:24 pm

So I guess you think the Constitution is just some historical document that does not have to be followed? I guess you think we have PROGRESSED pass the antiquated ideas behind the founding of this nation and we need to have more government control over our lives?

Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!

November 17th, 2011
2:30 pm

Just because you’re not principled enough to stand on your own two feet instead of kowtowing to the phony ideals of one of the major political parties, saywhat?, don’t disparage those who are, OK?

Darwin

November 17th, 2011
2:45 pm

Kyle – If the courts can rule that hospitals cannot deny medical treatment based on lack of health insurance, then they should rule that the government can penalize those who do not carry health insurance. And of course, the mandate was brought by the insurance companies you so love to protect and defend. This is their mandate. Without it, people would buy insurance in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and drop it in the discharge office. You continue to defend the status quo and it demonstrates your inability to provide answers that confront our country’s escalating health care costs.

Jefferson

November 17th, 2011
2:49 pm

Self respecting adults are just that and name calling children are just that.

Welcome to the Occupation

November 17th, 2011
2:51 pm

td: “They want all these freebies and just tax the 53% more for them.”

We’re not going to agree on anything, td.

People like you are still going to focus on irrelevant figures like 53%, because you still want to cling to the myth that something like “hard work” and “effort” still matter in the current rigged system. And you want to keep looking away from the painful fact that the 1% who are buying up our political system and we speak so they can further rig it to their advantage didn’t get there from relying on anything like those virtues. They got it through inheritance and cynical exploitation.

And people like me are going to keep doing our work to gum up the works, to pull up the tracks out ahead of the train these crooks have created.

So the same dynamic will keep going on .. until it stops going on .. but only one of us is actively working to make it stop .. as you know :)

williebkind

November 17th, 2011
2:52 pm

Supreme Conflict/Where is the Outrage?

November 17th, 2011
12:20 pm
Here we go again! The progressive liberals can not win the debate so attack attack attack attack the messenger (ie. Thomas and Scalia). I hope they do not recuse themselves. Just as the Obamacare was passed, the conservatives must return likewise but this time it will not smoke filled closed backrooms. Or buying the votes! I remember liberal! I will not forget.

Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!

November 17th, 2011
2:54 pm

“Without it, people would buy insurance in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and drop it in the discharge office.”

And of course without it today, people are doing just that, aren’t they, Darwin? :roll:

GT

November 17th, 2011
2:54 pm

I pay for police protection. Never had to use it but I am force to pay for it and the speeding and parking tickets they give me. I pay for schools I have never used, my children have never used, they went to private schools so I paid twice, I considered myself forced in this situation plus my wife volunteered me to mow the schools grass when it became a eye sore for our community. So I paid twice for that too. Of all this I don’t mine paying someone’s health insurance. It may be one of the few things I understand where my money goes and have actually seen educated studies that convince me it will eventually save the country a lot of money and tame this medical inflation that has taken advantage of our country.

I am not quiet sure where in the right’s mental picture of all this stuff ends up. Why do they think people dying in our street is a good thing. Why do they think being the policeman of the world can continued yet we have this human condition developing at home and that is not our problem. Where in 100 years at this rate do you think this country is going to be? We did learn a new word today, specious. Or did we?

williebkind

November 17th, 2011
2:55 pm

Darwin

November 17th, 2011
2:45 pm
Darwin you need to evolve. You so full of it. People go to the doctor easily when someone else is paying for it. Hell, like you they demand it.

jt

November 17th, 2011
2:57 pm

Constitutional Man or Whining Father-Figure seeking boy…………………………..
.
Everyone has to grow up eventually…………but often keeps putting it off via O’RomneyBama.
.
For men………Peace……Decency …and Goodwill………..Ron Paul 2012.
.
All others……report to Toys-R-Us.

williebkind

November 17th, 2011
2:58 pm

GT

November 17th, 2011
2:54 pm
I am so glad your are so generous with your time and money. Did or do you take care of your parents or did you send them to a nursing home.

JDW

November 17th, 2011
3:01 pm

@Tiberius…”Parsing of the Constitution is NOT allowed in intelligent discussion.”

I have given you my basis for Constitutionality, what pray tell is your opposing argument? The only one I have seen so far is “’cause I said so”.

Is the sale of insurance commerce…CLEARLY

Does the legislature have the right to regulate commerce…YES under Article 1 Section 8…
“The Congress shall have Power To…regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”

Are those rights limited…NO Further stated in Article 1 Section 8…
“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

http://www.constitution.org/constit_.htm

The duly elected Congress of The United States of America can make any law they wish pertaining to the regulation of commerce in this country. The sale of insurance is commerce. Your recourse is to elect a Congress that will rescind the law not try to find a way to legislate from the bench.

Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)

November 17th, 2011
3:02 pm

Funny how libtards think the 1% can somehow cast more than 50% of the votes come election time. If you have a problem with who we elect, look in the mirror…you are responsible.

seabeau

November 17th, 2011
3:07 pm

The States need to reassert their political power by calling a Constitutional Convention,in which the power of the Federal Government could be forever constrained as the framers intended.

td

November 17th, 2011
3:07 pm

Welcome to the Occupation

November 17th, 2011
2:51 pm

Who is the top 1%? What is their income limits? Anyone making over what amount?

“They got it through inheritance and cynical exploitation.”

Bill Gates?, Warren Buffet?, Steve Jobs?, Larry Ellison?, founders of Google?, Zuckerman?, Sam Walton? All of these men did not work hard? All of these men got their money from inheritance? Did you know Microsoft has created 3 billionaires and over 300 millionaire? Apple has produced 2 billionaires and 100 millionaires?

Did all of these people not work hard for their money? Are all of these people just a bunch of cheaters and use and abuse the middle class and the poor?

Your whole argument is a huge fallacy. Where is your supporting evidence that all the 1% got their money from ill gotten means?

Why do not admit that you did not do what you should have and gotten a good education, stayed away from drugs, did not have children before you could afford them. You do not want to be a risk taker. You do not want to work 100 hours per week, eat beans and rice and sacrifice. You would rather grip about the system and have the government confiscate the wealth of hard workers because you are unwilling or unable to go out and earn the things you want out of life.

Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!

November 17th, 2011
3:08 pm

JDW, “regulate” does not mean “force people to buy”.

You may wish to consult a dictionary for that reason alone.

Darwin

November 17th, 2011
3:09 pm

@Willie – What in heaven’s name are you talking about? The idea is to get people to pay for it. That’s the idea. What grade are you in?

yoda

November 17th, 2011
3:16 pm

Journalists that use the term “Obamacare” should go back to school.

Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)

November 17th, 2011
3:19 pm

Presidents who think there are 57 states should go back to the madrassa.

Ivan

November 17th, 2011
3:22 pm

bloggers that post under the name “yoda” should stay in their basement

JDW

November 17th, 2011
3:22 pm

@Tiberius…“regulate” does not mean “force people to buy”.

No one is forced to buy anything. Any persons may choose to self insure by deciding not to purchase recognized health insurance. In that case the government levies a fine to offset potential costs associated with that decision.

It would do you good to read Judge Silberman’s. He is as conservative as they come, he mentored Clarence Thomas, and does not like the law and yet understands that it is “clearly Constitutional”

http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/055C0349A6E85D7A8525794200579735/$file/11-5047-1340594.pdf

Republican Bloggers are INSANE

November 17th, 2011
3:23 pm

@Welcome to the Occupation November 17th, 2011 2:12 pm Lil’ Barry is Kyle’s alter ego.

Lil’ Brainout thinks he’s fighting for the true way. The fact that Barry (by the way what’s up with using the name of the person you purport to hate as your moniker?) is obviously not one of the 1% is sad and shows his true colors. He’s happy to convince himself he’s part of the 1% usurper class, which otherwise he would be shut out of.

I loved your comment to Lil Biddy Barry! Hahahahahahahaha!

JDW

November 17th, 2011
3:24 pm

ooops Judge Silberman’s Opinion

What's Up With That?

November 17th, 2011
3:27 pm

@Lil’ Barry Bailout (Revised Downward) November 17th, 2011 3:19 pm

Yeah, by the way what’s up with using the name of the person you purport to hate as your moniker?

We think you got a thing for Obama! Don’t you? Admit it!

Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)

November 17th, 2011
3:34 pm

I’m glad you recognize my handle as referring to Obozo. That tells me something.

And I don’t hate. Heck, I’ve never even so much as voted Democrat once.

Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!

November 17th, 2011
3:35 pm

Oh, I see, JDW. If you don’t buy health insurance for health care, you pay a fine which – buys health care!

Got it. :roll:

Mike

November 17th, 2011
3:37 pm

“Obamacare” is simply a mandate that requires everyone to purchase insurance, it has almost nothing to do with “care”.

GT

November 17th, 2011
3:42 pm

williebkind my mother is 98 years old and lives independent, my father died in his easy chair at home in 1988. My father was a Republican from birth because the Democrats were so crooked most of his life. He was in the air conditioning business and they would show up about once a year to solicited their bribes to put air in the state buildings. Of course he never sold them an air conditioner because of it. Government corruption is a bit like the Penn State thing, everybody knows it goes on but no one wants to get involved. When they do they wish they had not because the police and everybody they turn to are under the influence of the powerful that are doing wrong.

The healthcare thing is a bit of that mob mentality. A lot of emotional people who have their facts wrong. I am sure there is a lobbyist helping this misinformation from the insurance company and a politician getting money from that lobbyist and votes for his “righteous” battle, not unlike Ralph Reed. I think my father would have switched parties as he watched the Baptist with the Rolex watches jumping the fence to join him in the Republican Party.

Rafe Hollister

November 17th, 2011
3:46 pm

Obviously anyone reading the Constitution to determine the intent of the framers, quickly learns that the individual mandate is unconstituitional.

HOWEVER, long ago the courts decided that the Constitution was meant to be read as a reference and its wording used and parsed to justify whatever the courts decided was what is best for mankind i.e. a strong imperial Federal Government.

That is how you get a Constitution with a bold no nonsense 10th Amendment that is totally disregarded, because the courts determined it was out of date and got in the way of their rulings.

That is how the courts determined that a man growing wheat, from seed he saved, to feed his own farm animals, that he slaughtered for his own use, was involved in “interstate commerce”. This decision frames the progressives opinion that the Fed Gov has control of everything, because of the Commerce clause.

So in this light, the Supremes may rule either way. Recent efforts to return original thinkers and Constitutional lovers to the court may not be enough to overcome the “living/breathing- change with the times” crowd.

Dusty

November 17th, 2011
3:49 pm

Kyle,

Please speak to your technical people. They (?) wipe out my ID everytime I leave this blog. I asked for their help twice but nothing!! This started happening about a week ago. Thank you.

Kyle Wingfield

November 17th, 2011
3:51 pm

Dusty: Check your inbox…I emailed you about this.

Welcome to the Occupation

November 17th, 2011
4:00 pm

td: “Bill Gates?, Warren Buffet?, Steve Jobs?, Larry Ellison?, founders of Google?, Zuckerman?, Sam Walton? All of these men did not work hard? All of these men got their money from inheritance? Did you know Microsoft has created 3 billionaires and over 300 millionaire? Apple has produced 2 billionaires and 100 millionaires?”

Do the ranks of the wealthy include many who worked hard and/or are in possession of unique talents that have enabled their rise to the top? Sure. But whether they are hard working or not, the fact is that the vast majority of the wealthy have benefited from an infrastructure and other resources that have originated in the public sphere and been

The Internet that Gates and Ellison and Jobs and others benefitted from would never have been possible without government/military investment in that technology. Every major technological boom going all the way back to the railroads has consisted of a market that was created by public investment and was only then exploited by private interests afterward.

“You would rather grip about the system and have the government confiscate the wealth of hard workers because you are unwilling or unable to go out and earn the things you want out of life.”

As I said. We’re not going to agree here. You are invested in placing your faith in a system based on the myths of the rugged individual and hard work, which is translated into unlimited support for corporate interests which have nothing to do with those virtues.

Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)

November 17th, 2011
4:06 pm

The income taxes paid by the wealthy paid for the infrastructure, so there should be no whining about them using it.

Elizabeth Warren’s talking point is so easily debunked as to be laughable.

Dusty

November 17th, 2011
4:08 pm

Kyle,

Did not get your first message but got the second one. Sent you a reply (and filled in my ID since it was gone). Thank you.

JDW

November 17th, 2011
4:09 pm

@Tiberius…”Oh, I see, JDW. If you don’t buy health insurance for health care, you pay a fine which – buys health care!”

Not really, the fine offsets the expenses to treat uninsured patients that today are paid by health care providers and taxpayers. It doesn’t by health insurance. See what I don’t get is why you object to collecting money from irresponsible people that in most cases are going to leave you with the bill. It was a GREAT idea when:

In 1989 when a book named “A National Health System for America” by Stuart Butler and Edmund Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation introduced the concept.

“We would include a mandate in our proposal–not a mandate on employers, but a mandate on heads of households–to obtain at least a basic package of health insurance for themselves and their families.” Stuart Butler in a 1989 lecture.

It was even better when Newt supported the idea in 1993…

“I am for people, individuals — exactly like automobile insurance — individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance,” Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press.

It was the best thing since sliced bread when the Republican front runner Romney actually implemented it in Massachusetts in 2005.

What happened, other than an attack of hypocrisy?

Dekalb Citizen

November 17th, 2011
4:13 pm

Lil’ Barry…I do not consider myself wealthy and I pay plenty of income taxes to both the federal and state government. I might be considered upper middle class but I am not wealthy.

So are you suggesting that my tax dollars have not been used to pay for any infrastructure? What were they used for? Maybe mine were just used for bombs and bullets. Or maybe they were only used to pay Congress critters or the “real deal”.

Please enlighten me on where my tax dollars have been going the past 30 years….I’m sure others on this blog would also like to be enlightened by your infinite wisdom.

JDW

November 17th, 2011
4:19 pm

@Rafe…”Obviously anyone reading the Constitution to determine the intent of the framers, quickly learns that the individual mandate is unconstituitional.”

Boy that sounds really good…until you read the Constitution…

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution…
“The Congress shall have Power To…regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”

Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 of the U.S. Constitution…”The Congress shall have Power To,,, make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers ”

Why there it is in black and white, he duly elected Congress of The United States of America can make any law they wish pertaining to the regulation of commerce in this country. The sale of insurance is commerce.

Try Again

Welcome to the Occupation

November 17th, 2011
4:20 pm

The income taxes paid by the wealthy paid for the infrastructure, so there should be no whining about them using it.

What income taxes paid? We have bridges falling down in this country, a transportation infrastructure that has never been renewed and is a laughing stock compared to other countries, and we’re laying off teachers in droves. So whatever they’re paying — and it ain’t much — it ain’t enough.

Holding out my hands now … gimme some more .. let’s see it!

Elizabeth Warren’s talking point is so easily debunked as to be laughable.

Only if you’re laughing by the graveyard because you’re terrified that her message will start resonating with the public.

Dusty

November 17th, 2011
4:22 pm

Welcome to the Occupation,

You were going good until you got to your third paragraph. Then you fell into the net of socialism like a fish leaving his free life in the sea. Sad1

Most Americans have not lost their lost their rugged individualism, their ability to work and their independence. They have not retreated into some seance of political leaning that declares, basicly, that all rich people are evil and out to kill our country.

Corporations are the backbone of our economics and even Obama knows it. He wouldn’t be trying to stimulate big & little business in foolish measures if he did not. Or his advisors told him so.

You want someone else to run your life.

Get a clue. Most of us value the virtue of independence. You have obviously lost yours.

GT

November 17th, 2011
4:26 pm

Rafe Hollister the slavery thing was part of that constitution I assume you do not want that, though that may be a rather large assumption. The constitution is a living breathing thing that guarantees equal treatment under the law of all human beings yet the very writing infers all human beings are not equal. Newt and others have said the courts are too independent, they want them answerable to the mob. Then if we decided a Jewish pencil maker raped a child in his basement we could legally lynch him, not be weighted down by a moral conscience or a thing call justice. If I were Newt and the way his life is turning around his greed for money and lust I think I might leave that court and human justice alone for a while. He very well may be needing the medicine he is so energetically against at this high and mighty moment, as might we all. Our system is not the problem with the country, it is the people that live in this country that need some changing.

Dusty

November 17th, 2011
4:31 pm

JDW

I was under the impression that Romney’s healthcare was an expensive failure. That estimated costs of the program were vastly underestimated and cost rose far beyond expectations.

If one state program ended like that, can you imagine what will happen if ObamaCare for the whole USA is not repealed? Think hard about “cost beyond expectations” because that is the usual.

UK is revising their health program. Others will too as citizens tire of giving up 50% of their income for poor service.

Steve

November 17th, 2011
4:37 pm

You’d think conservatives would LOVE Obamacare as all it does is add more people into the private insurance companies, increasing corporate profit.

Welcome to the Occupation

November 17th, 2011
4:41 pm

You’d think conservatives would LOVE Obamacare as all it does is add more people into the private insurance companies, increasing corporate profit.

Yeah well they can’t have too much overlap when there’s the myth of a black Kenyan Marxist to uphold — they’ve got minions to keep motivated you know — so that one kind of had to go by the waysides.

Steve

November 17th, 2011
4:44 pm

Dusty – you are wrong.

WWLP) – New data has been released on the effectiveness of Massachusetts’s health care law, and most of the findings are positive.

The new study, released this week by a team of Massachusetts economists, shows that the state’s health care insurance requirement has been key to the health care law’s success. This requirement, which was enacted back in 2006, states that all Massachusetts Residents must have health insurance coverage.

http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/massachusetts/Study:-Mass.-healthcare-law-a-success

Welcome to the Occupation

November 17th, 2011
4:48 pm

Steve: “You’d think conservatives would LOVE Obamacare as all it does is add more people into the private insurance companies, increasing corporate profit. ”

Besides, that was long before they ever dreamed they could get away with a wholesale rollback of the New Deal — recall that in 2008 Jim DeMint of all people supported Mitt Romney and touted his health reforms in MA, Jim DeMint!!

So the RomneyCare plan — which originated in the Heritage Foundation in the 80s, ancient history — itself was just a plan put forward under the assumption that the liberal New Deal was in some sense a permanent framework and could never be directly opposed. Thus they had to propose a conservative version that could fly under the New Deal regime and undermine it from within.

But after 2008, when the Kenyan Marxist took power, everything changed. Now that the big enchilada is within reach — total rollback — the old Heritage Foundation idea is of no use and is even counterproductive. Hence it must be ruthlessly killed.

Dusty

November 17th, 2011
4:48 pm

Well, GT wants to change the people of this country so he can enjoy the “true” way. Seems the “mob” here is not to his liking.

I suggest something better. Go, GT, and find the country that has people you can enjoy..

Bon voyage! Send us a postcard when you get there. .