So last week, we saw the Supreme Court uphold the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies, and, the next day, marriage equality — which prompted some in the media to call it Pres. Obama’s best week ever, though that seems off to me.
We saw the sad burials [pictured] of some of the victims from the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
We’ve engaged in massive discussions about the Confederate flag, and watched a woman named Bree Newsome climb a South Carolina flagpole to remove a Confederate battle flag — quoting Psalms while she both climbed and descended the pole.
We all live in interesting times, don’t we? Onward to this week and all the excitement it will bring. Here’s more on this incredible time.
Dating Jesus 
Re Remnick:
He states King “put an end to years of court cases and congressional attacks against the Affordable Care Act.” That’s just not true. US House of Representatives v. Burwell, et. al. is still alive and kicking, as far as I can see. This case challenges the legality of the cost-sharing subsidies available to low income ObamaCare® consumers purchasing Silver Plans, and the authority of Obama’s delay in implementing the employer mandate. Speaker Boehner hasn’t commented on the case directly but has stated since the ruling on King that Congressional opposition to ObamaCare® will continue unabated. For instance: “The 2016 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill from a House subcommittee…bars the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from using any funds to implement health reform. This would shut down the federally run health insurance marketplaces and cause millions of people to lose financial assistance in obtaining coverage, as well as end HHS enforcement of rules that protect health insurance consumers and patients.” (CBPP) Remnick also states “that millions of Americans will no longer live in a state of perpetual anxiety about health costs.” This is just complete bullshit. As long as we continue to ration healthcare based on economic class that state of perpetual anxiety will continue. ObamaCare® has done nothing to change that. ObamaCare can never change that.
One gets the impression, based on the other unverified assertions included in the piece, that Remnick thinks Obama is running for office somewhere. He seems to be oblivious to the fact that the most recent, and most pointed, challenges to Obama’s administration policies have come from within the democratic Party and how Obama crawled into bed with Speaker Boehner to usurp the democratic process to get executive branch unilateral trade bill authority through Congress.
Of all the bullshit I’ve read over the last few days….Remnick stands out as a superlative in the genre.
Re Confederate flag:
Tokenism piled upon tokenism. But what you gonna do? That’s all we’ve got. That’s all we’re allowed.
You’ve got to write more on tokenism. If you don’t, I will.
My definition of tokenism…the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing…includes but is not limited to the exploitation of a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of diversity or equality. I see it as a principle characteristic of the liberal reformism…bourgeois reformism…that dominates US government (Capitalist) domestic social policy.
I could start with Lenin…
…but that would probably stress out the word count.
And here come more church-burnings. What is THAT? “I’ll show YOU?” “I’m an idiot too and I want my fair share of attention?” What IS it?
It’s a last gasp, I-m-a-gonna-git-me-some stupid-ass mentality that should have been bred out of the herd ages ago.
Church burnings are a message: Nothing has changed.
Churches are targeted because they are the traditional home of Black resistance to white nationalism.
I hope the stupid-asses are caught — unlikely, I know — and put in the town square in stocks.
I wouldn’t call it a last gasp…not by a long shot.
Emma Green in The Atlantic on church-burnings:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/06/arson-churches-north-carolina-georgia/396881/