Political Quick Hits: November 18th Edition

Here’s your weekly quick look at a few developing stories in the political arena:

• As expected, the Supreme Court announced this week that it will decide on the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s health care reform. The court will hear two major questions, the first being if the individual mandate requiring Americans to have health insurance is constitutional and if so, the second question is should all of the healthcare reform be scrapped? Arguments will likely be in February or March, with a ruling coming by June. The ruling will once again make health care an important issue for the 2012 presidential race. (CNN)

• Congress again avoided a shutdown threat by passing a temporary spending measure on Thursday that will keep the government funded until December 16. The government would have run out of  money midnight Friday if another temporary spending bill wasn’t passed. (CNN)

Posted by:

Justin Burkhardt

Healthcare Reform turns 1 today

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, also known as “Obamacare,” saw it’s first birthday Wednesday. Many provisions have already been rolled out this year, with the rest of the major provisions taking effect in 2014. Do you feel that you or the average American has enough knowledge of the health care bill? A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll this month say that 52% of Americans feel they don’t have enough information on the law to understand how it will or has affected them personally. These numbers are about the same from a year ago when the law was first passed.  So this raises the question, do you think the government should have promoted the benefits of this bill more?

Hit the jump to find out what changed with Healthcare.

Posted by:

Justin Burkhardt

Howard Dean: “Kill the Senate Health Care Bill & Start Over!”

After months of debate, infighting, and all out tom-foolery, former Democratic presidential candidate, and DNC chairman, Howard Dean thinks that we should scrap the health care bill and start over. According to Dean, all of the negotiations and deal making has water down the bill so much that what is being proposed in the Senate isn’t truly health care reform. Dean, who thinks there are good elements in the bill, believes that the current legislation being debated in the Senate (which lacks the public option) is more of the same old ish. “No one will think this is health care reform. This is not even insurance reform,” he said.

Dean, of course, has more insight into this topic than most other elected officials due to the fact that he is actually a physician.
That’s why his words are resonating so strongly in the blogospehere.
According to several sources, Dean even stated that America needs to start over in Obama’s second term. (If he gets a second term.)

Man, it’s hard to believe that after all this craziness, Congress still continues to jerk around the American people, especially young folks who will have to pay for these half-baked reforms.

Posted by:

Biko Baker

One of the Worst (Muslim) Weeks Ever

Peace peeps. If you thought my blog on my experiences observing and partaking in the November elections in Maine was provocative, my latest musings on WireTapMag.org around the Fort Hood killings, the death of DC sniper-John Allen Muhammad and the trial of alleged “mastermind” of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (“Who’s Afraid of the ‘Muslim Boogeyman?’”) is sure to raise those stakes.

Check it out over at Wiretap!

Posted by:

Joshua Fahiym Ratcliffe

Kanye and Joe Wilson: Who Cares?

Time to admit something: I’m kind of uncool.

On a scale of one to badass, I’m somewhere around Screech from Saved by the Bell.

Maybe that’s why I’m a little jealous of Kanye and, to some degree, even Joe Wilson.

These guys have been cocky enough to actually yell out and take over our collective attention with their bad behavior for the past week or so and to some degree – I kinda envy that. But it takes a certain type of person to bluster on loudly while important things are actually happening.

And all the while, nobody is talking about the issues we actually give a damn about. What ever happened to that little health care reform thing? Or the fact that the racism we all believed to be dead is making a resurgence in ‘news’ punditry? Or an effective, progressive climate bill?

It’s kind of like our eating habits. More often than not, we’ll choose a big, juicy gossip Big Mac over a nutritious fact salad. And we’re infinitely worse off for it. As young Americans, we really need to reevaluate our news habits… or soon enough, we’re gonna be watching the weekly (Insert Pundit Here) Hot Dog Eating Contest And Face Punch Challenge for our daily updates on the state of the country.

Could be just the Screech side of me talking though.

Posted by:

Steve Romain