ACA Reax, a View from Abroad: If a Law Passes at Home when you're not there, does it make a difference?

Affordable Care Act
By Nadia Sheikh

Like many other Americans yesterday, I was absolutely glued to my phone and the Internet, waiting to hear the U.S. Supreme Court's announcement on President Obama's health care plan, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (also known as "Obamacare" by pundits).

The Court's decision was full of some unanticipated shifts -- ranging from the court's voting patterns -- to how they formed their decision on ACA's legality. It was also interesting to watch CNN alongside Pakistanis with very little interest or knowledge of the politicized nature of this health care plan. "Is it good or is it bad for you?" asked a family friend.

To be honest, I had to think about this for a bit. Yes, I'm a liberal and voted for Obama. Yes, I agree that universal health care is important initiative with too much backlog in the United States. Yes, it sucks not to have health care insurance (a predicament I've found myself in a few times in the past five years.  For instance, one does not want to end up in the ER with a fractured ankle -- a terrible experience I had my first weekend of college in 2005, resulting in several thousand dollars in costs for an 8 hour visit.

Blowouts and Brownouts - Happy Monday!

Happy Monday... if only you had a restful weekend rather than one wracked by thunder, lightning, and gale-force winds. The weekend-long power outages in NoVa-Arlington and some parts of DC ranged anywhere from annoying to hazardous as thermometers continued to rise throughout the region. 

Yet in many parts of the world, constant and reliable electrical power is a luxury, if not downright impossible to obtain. Here, Nadia explains the concept and toils of  power "loadshedding:" A practice common in urban areas of many developing countries, including Pakistan and Iraq, and what Pakistan intends to do to solve its energy crisis (Hint: Israel would be pissed)

Pipelines
By Nadia Sheikh

Electricity shortages are one of Pakistan’s biggest vices. In its cities, loadshedding can occur anywhere from 6-10 hours a day; in the rural areas, it’s 10-12 hours at the least.  With the summer heat,  loadshedding only further intensifies. Recent protests in Khairpur and Lahore illustrate the level of frustrations Pakistanis have with their elected officials, who do not share the burden, and cannot relate to the impact on productivity, output, and the psyches of their constituents.

With these problems at hand, the Pakistani government has looked outward for solutions for years, recognizing the need for external sources of gas and energy as opposed to building up infrastructure within the country.

In particular,  Pakistan has gravitated toward the idea, the notion of  building pipelines of gas -- one with Iran,  known as Iran-Pakistan Peace Pipeline, much to the chagrin of the Americans; the other, with Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, & India (TAPI), which is hailed as a symbol of regional cooperation.­­. Whether these projects are feasible in  development and implementation, it is hard to say.

Debunking Liberal Economics Volume 1 "A College Degree is Key to the Middle Class" Issue 1: Government Inflated a Bubble

Before I begin I also would like to welcome our new writers and thank them for their time to helping Matt and I out on this crazy project we envisioned. To our readers, I hope I am turning you. 

(Matt, I would love to put up a poll to find out the ideological skew of our readers, my guess is at least 70-30 against me. Maybe even 95-5…) 

Now, I will dive into the issue at hand: liberal policies of just throwing money at the problem have created an issue and the only way to solve it is by completely re-envisioning the model.

I didn’t mean to make this post a response to Matt, but I later decided to just focus this post on something Matt wrote in his last post in what has shaped up to be “Education Week at CR”. Matt wrote, “Whenever anything goes wrong, you can always expect conservatives to blame the government.” Matt, there’s probably a cause-effect problem here. You see if A constantly causes B, one would be correct to say that A caused B. However, what you are asserting in that statement is that A did not actually cause B. So let’s take a look at whether A did cause B, shall we?

The Next Bubble

Its been so long since last we... okay, I'll stop.  But seriously, as our three readers know, its been awhile since I've taken the time to put together something substantive for the blog.  Thank goodness for Conflict Revolution's new writers, or Stephen and I might owe more in child support to this whole enterprise than a certain former elected official does to his love child. 

Guess again!

Which brings me to the point about welcoming the new writers I mentioned.  We are happy to benefit from the outstanding contributions of Elaine Chen, who will be helping us with morning updates and assorted other posts, and Nadia Sheikh, who has kindly offered to cross post some content from her excellent blog Nadia in Pakistan.  Thanks Nadia and Elaine, and welcome!

Yet even as Conflict Revolution's platform widens and the blog expands, we can't forget where we came from.  Steve and I have most recently been working on a couple of (mostly) friendly exchanges on topics ranging from inheritance taxes to regulatory burdens, Republican obstruction, and tacky campaign fundraising gimmicks.  Sexy!  But if you're craving some email debate and you just can't wait, see our most recent discussion on plastic bags and global warming.  It's... great.

Now, that promised substantive post. 

Afternoon Update: Healthcare Roundup

I don't know if anyone heard, but there was a Supreme Court ruling of some minor importance this morning.  Stephen and I engaged in an extremely in-depth and substantive debate about it here.

Here are some additional perspectives on the case, and the health care issue in general:

1) The saga of Republicans having been for the individual mandate before they were against it is well-chronicled, but here's a fun fact: Jim DeMint, arguably the most tea-partying Tea Party member of the US Senate, wrote a letter to George W. Bush in 2007 urging the former president to:

“ensure that all Americans would have affordable, quality, private health coverage, while protecting current government programs. We believe the health care system cannot be fixed without providing solutions for everyone. Otherwise, the costs of those without insurance will continue to be shifted to those who do have coverage.”

Sounds an awful lot like what the Supreme Court justices just signed off on.  Nevertheless, Ezra Klein wonders: Do Republicans even want everyone to be covered anymore?

2) Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg points out that public knowledge of what's in the health care bill is still pretty weak, with even Republicans liking most of the individual provisions in the law they so abhor.  A full 48 percent of Americans either thought the health care law had been repealed or were unsure.  Mitt Romney has outlined no alternative health care plan whatsoever.  Does he really want a fight on this?

3) Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal argues that, if it is not eventually repealed, the Affordable Care Act will forever be swimming against the tide of history.   Ironically, in Mr. Henninger's analysis of a law that is allegedly at odds with an era defined by "a dazzling, unprecedented array of choices," he makes no mention of the fact that the Affordable Care Act is designed to provide exactly the kind of health care choices he supports.  Perhaps the WSJ should write a column excoriating all those Republican governors and state legislatures for refusing to establish the state-level health insurance exchanges that encourage health care competition and are a linchpin in the legislation.

4) Lastly, Alex MacGillis argues that with the legal distractions now put to bed, Obama must make a strong case for his signature domestic achievement.  

As a certain stuttering duck once said with significantly more difficulty... that's all, folks.  If you're looking to waste more of your own time reading about the health care ruling, I would recommend starting here, here, and here.

Rapid Reax: Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare

It's a great day for individual responsibility, as the Supreme Court held this morning that the individual health care mandate, and most of the rest of President Obama's 2010 health care law, is in fact constitutional.  Somewhere, the pre-2008 edition of the cyborg known by his friends as Mitt Romney is rejoicing. 

The blogosphere is abuzz with reaction to the decision, and Stephen and Matt joined in by engaging in a bit of pre-emptive sniping on Twitter this morning.  Here's a sampling:

I know, I know.  But if that was exhausting to read, just imagine how difficult it was to take so many screen shots. 

More reaction to come, along with some court analysis from CR Chief Legal Correspondent Stephen DeGenaro, who Conflict Revolution enthusiasts may remember wrote this recap of the oral arguments on the health care case in March. 

Stay safe out there folks, and watch out for the job killers.  Now that Obamacare is constitutional, they're everywhere...

Wednesday Morning News and Updates

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel's plan for Europe is causing doubt among other European countries as well as the rest of the world. Will their grand plans of creating European integration through a political union be successful?

The super heat-spike has caused Colorado's wildfire to double in size since it began last night. It has grown to over the span of 24 square miles, with only 5% being contained. Local firefighters are currently assessing the situation in how to keep the flames from spreading.

Issues on how much Facebook stock should be priced at is a major topic today in Wall Street. While major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan believe it should be priced between $45 and $47 respectively over the next year, others believe it should settle at the price it started out: $38. Currently, the average Facebook stock is $37.71. Has the stock market overestimated the revolution Facebook was to have over the industry after going public?

[Not-so] Love Lockdown, Prologue (1/4): Do Convicted Criminals dream the American dream?

Do convicted criminals dream the American dream?

Sure they do - Just look at freshly sentenced criminals Rajat Gupta (former Goldman board member), R. Allen Stanford (sentenced to 110 years in prison without parole), and of course Grandaddy Ponzi himself, Bernie Madoff. Hell, these guys even lived the American dream, with its fast cars, deep pockets, luxury yachts and diamonds for the ladies in life.

Now, these riches-to-rags storybook characters are scheduled to rot in a Federal penitentiary for the rest of their lives, leaving exponentially more finances and possibly life plans ruined in their wake. All this justice, of course, conducted in order to dissuade other current or would-be criminals from acting...in exactly the only way they know of how to get to the American dream - Get Rich or Die/Go to Jail Trying.

50 Cent was on to something

A rather paradoxical message, given the global rash of government-bank bailouts and the continued reliance on the instruments (i.e. financial markets) of who-dares-wins capitalism. But enough of this suddenly-fashionable bashing of fallen financial idols. It seems like just yesterday when activist judges, juries, and members of the media started defending the rights of convicted rapists, murderers, gang-bangers and the assorted denizens of American death row - new and vindicating/damning DNA evidence notwithstanding - so I'm sure public opinion will grow weary of its latest social witch-hunt sooner or later, and that District Attorneys/Federal Prosecutors will likewise find some other scapegoats upon which to build their reputations on the docket. Sooner or later, our generation's To Kill a Mockingbird of the early 21st century will be published, this time admonishing the veritable inquisition of financial criminals during a time of long-term recession and entrenched unemployment.

Yet even in a time of economic downturn, when Wall Street becomes an easy target of Main Street's wrath, no one seems to be pissing on how the wildly-popular (and mostly plastic) Kardashians, the train-wreck-of-an-excuse-for-a-man Charlie Sheens, or the well-paid, drug-snorting Lindsay Blohan-type celebrities don't pay "their fair share" of American taxes. Plus Justin Bieber- he's CANADIAN!! Where is that money going??

oh...nevermind.

What compelled me to finally write original content for the blog again - and a three-part series, at that - was a combination of many factors, the premier of which was my roommate's comment that, "no offense, but I think the American Dream is more of a Dream than a Reality."