Nino, We Knew You Too Well

The death of Antonin Scalia yesterday left me remarkably speechless.  It took a night of turning the event over in my mind before I could write about it.

Because he was so obviously going to be rattling his cage with the Supremes forever, it was inevitable that I would have from time to time imagined his death as the only likely way to move the Supreme Court forward.  There, I said it.

He may be a larger than life evil figure to me, not just because of his power, but because we are both full-blooded Italians.  Scalia more than fulfilled the stereotype I grew up with of Italian men.  He was a mafioso with an Ivy League education.  He was convinced that he was the smartest person in the room, and held contempt for those who he saw as beneath him.  Which was most of us.

He was rigid and held to simple and self-serving philosophies.  Calling himself an originalist, he was a proud founding member of the Federalist Society.  However, as with all obsessively rigid people, Scalia could blatantly hold a conflicting opinion if it served his interest, and wholeheartedly deny the conflict.  He condemned activist judges, except, of course, when it was him.  Because he was always right.

He was best friends with Justice Ginsberg, a friendship which totally flummoxes me.  We've all heard of warring attorneys enjoying after-hour friendships.  But I can't imagine someone as moral as Ginsberg being able to stick all that in a compartment so she can enjoy a glass of wine with Nino.  I have imagined that he must have enjoyed having all those women on the bench of late.  Not because he valued their opinions, but because he could engage in flirtatious sparring with intelligent female opponents.  What fun!

I do believe though, that as Obama's appointees became more influential, and at times he was even abandoned by fellow right wingnut Chief Justice Roberts, Scalia's narcissistic wit began to deteriorate.  Loose associations having to do with broccoli and his most recent failure to self-censor his racism suggest that Scalia was not quite as clever as his self-promotion made him out to be.  Perhaps it was the inevitable legalization of gay marriage that pushed his homophobic old mind over the edge.  In fact, it was after the DOMA decision that Scalia told an interviewer that the devil is real:

Have you seen evidence of the Devil lately?
You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore.

No.
It’s because he’s smart.

Scalia was "Despicable Me" with less charm and more power.  He was not at all embarrassed at his conflicts of interest during his time on the bench because, after all, he was right.  He was indeed above the law, which is a scary position for one of the most powerful jurists in the land.

After a good night's sleep I find that it will be easier to accept the absence of Scalia.

It will come as no surprise that Mitch McConnell has already said that a new justice should not be appointed until after the election.  He would have said the same thing if Scalia had died two years ago.  Senate republicans have routinely chosen to leave seats vacant during Obama's presidency in the hope of filling them with more desirable right-wing candidates after the presidential election.  This has left a shameful backlog in the courts, but, hey, it's not about justice, it's about politics -- and power.

So for at least a year we will have an eight-member Supreme Court.  This will no doubt mean a lot of 4-4 decisions, meaning no decision.  Which I see as an improvement over the status quo.

I worry though.

I worry about how hard Ruth Bader Ginsberg is taking the loss of her friend.  To be honest, it's not completely motivated by empathy.  I worry about her health.  We need her more than ever now.

I worry about Clarence Thomas.  What on earth is he going to do without his buddy to hide behind, and say all the horrible things Thomas would like to say if he wasn't so bottled up with rage?

The ground shifted a little for me when I heard the news last night.  But I imagine the earth shifted a bit more for those remaining eight members of the most exclusive and sheltered club in all of this country.

We have survived a do-nothing Congress, and in fact, were better off for it.  Perhaps the remaining Supremes will just hang in and bide their time for a year or more as well.

As for Antonin Scalia, his last day on earth was spent at a friend's ranch, doing what he most enjoyed, hunting down and taking shots at the smaller and weaker among us.   

Killing Obamacare

I am outraged by assaults by the republicans on abortion rights and voting rights, but these are issues that are not personally going to affect me.  What I am personally concerned about these days is all the efforts that are going into killing Obamacare, still.  The latest assaults could well succeed.

Antonin Scalia, narcissist extraordinaire and the mouthpiece most damaging to the honor and credibility of the Supreme Court, is the most likely nail in the coffin of the Affordable Care Act.  He believes that in looking at legislation, intent should not be considered, even if it is verifiable.  The only consideration should be the exact words in the law.  Unless, that is, it goes against his own belief of what the law should be.

In this case, the whole of Obamacare is resting in the four words, "established by the state."  Despite the fact that no one involved in the debate or writing of the law believes that the intent was to exclude those states who refused to create an insurance exchange, Scalia will hold forth with the claim that those words are in the bill and must be followed.

Now that the ACA is the law of the land, and people have become very happy with having affordable insurance, the republican party is being a bit more sneaky about killing it.  They have already come up with an alternative that would continue the ACA until 2017, but only if the individual and employer mandates are discontinued.  Those extremists who believe tax subsidies should only go to wealthy corporations are proposing tax credits rather than subsidies.  So basically, if your income is so low you pay no taxes, voila, no tax credit.

Because I turn 65 in 2016, and it seems even the rabid republicans can't kill Medicare in that short a time, I let go a sigh of relief to hear that I could still have insurance even if Scalia gets his way.  But that doesn't make the problem a lesser one.  Killing the mandate kills the funding for the ACA.  What the republicans understand is that Obamacare only works if everyone participates.  And what they also understand is that most voters are mostly concerned with what affects them immediately.  They will be angry if they lose their insurance coverage.  But if the republicans can blame Obama and the Democrats, which they have done successfully for some time now, it is a win-win for them.  They can continue to be the anti-tax party and the freedom party.

What they understand all too well is that people don't care about health insurance until it affects them.  That is why forcing insurance companies to offer better plans only matters to those who had inadequate insurance that they needed.  Those who didn't need it are quite loud and angry about having to pay more for what amounts to better insurance.  And some that are quite stupid will yell about paying more even when they use that better coverage.

I worry about what the Supremes will decide in June.  As should we all.  Because I might be okay till I turn 65, but my kids might not.  They might end up having the same vulnerability to illness that too many of us Americans experienced up until Obamacare was passed.  It was a terrifying time, and the republicans, frankly, don't give a damn.  They can turn our fear and tragedy to votes.

What we can do at this point, is be educated about this.  And inform others.  Keep an eye on the Supremes, and be willing and ready to fight our South Carolina legislators, both state and federal, to preserve affordable health care.

Halloween Favorites

It's that time of year again, and our favorite scary people are out and about.  Here are my top three, and what to look for:

Dick Cheney comes out from under his rock for all special occasions.

Even creepier when he's happy.

Vader gets angry when mistaken for Cheney.

Lately, in the pot calling the kettle etc. category, he is criticizing President Obama for lying, keeping secrets and wanting lots of control.  He's calling this "European socialism" by which he means "Bush era strategies."  I think he's jealous, misses the good old days.

How do I know that?  Because just one day earlier, he was pissed off at Edward Snowden and called him a traitor, adding that spying is just what the NSA does.

The good news/bad news is that Canada is still trying to arrest him for war crimes but he keeps giving them the slip.  Have no fear; if they get him he will no doubt still be out in time for next Halloween.

Antonin Scalia will be in the scariest costume he can find:

Likes to steal treats from little kids.

Was it just last year that Scalia brought forth his apparent childhood neurosis when he compared the health care mandate to forcing people to buy broccoli?  Antonin does tend to wear his heart on his sleeve, but with such a big sleeve it's often hard to see.  To say he's fearful, of broccoli, of gays getting married, of black people voting would be nothing compared to what he feels about the devil.

Scalia recently talked about his disappointment in the devil, that he is not around so much lately, and then confessed, in whispered tones that that is because he "got wilier."  He reminisced about the days when the devil (which he pronounces with a capital "D") would get pigs to run off cliffs, possess people "and whatnot."

He hopes next year to find a costume that gives proper credit to the devil, like perhaps a Supreme Court robe in red.

Ted Cruz of the scary state of Texas is the most recent addition to the Halloween Halls of Horror:

Pretends to look silly.

Cruz dresses for Halloween in his usual.  He wears silly expressions and tries to act nice so that people won't see what he's up to.  He also was born in Canada, in an attempt to get us to let our guard down by thinking he's ineligible to run for President.  He likes to talk -- for hours -- about his worries about our health care, but he gets confused, like thinking that the reason England has universal health care is because of Hitler.

Jon Stewart later givers a reading of The Bore-Ax.

And he enjoys reading Dr. Seuss, but doesn't get that Sam I Am actually tried Green Eggs and Ham and discovered that he liked them.

Yes that dopey well-meaning look is really the best disguise of them all.  Because Ted Cruz opposes Obamacare, women's reproductive freedom, food stamps, and I believe small children in general.  But who would know?

So this year, in spite of the Red Sox being off the streets sleeping off their hangovers, there will be some truly scary stuff happening.  And the only thing to do if you see any of these characters in your neighborhood is to give them ALL your candy.  And your health insurance.

Popeless

This whole thing with the Pope is just bizarre.  No, not the part where he resigns, unless you're thinking it's bizarre for the Pope to exercise such good judgment.  The thing that I'm finding bizarre is that no one seems to know where to go from here.

For days now I've heard people in the media worry about what's going to happen now, now that the world no longer has a pope.  OMG, what are we to do?

Hello, people, this is not the first time the world has been without a pope.  Those old guys die all the time.  As a matter of fact, Pope John Paul I was Pope for 33 days, not even long enough to be fitted for a full wardrobe.  And for that matter, he wasn't even that old, a sprite 66 years.  Nobody could have been expecting that.  Yet who remembers all this whining about not having a pope and what are we going to do now?

Okay, maybe they weren't concerned about what to do now because they had just done the thing a mere 33 days earlier.  But even so, Pope John Paul XXIII, who was my mother's favorite pope, was only around doing the pope thing for five years, one of which he was suffering with cancer.

The thing that's different is that he's still there, which should make it easier; after all, if there's an emergency in the Catholic church (and what on earth would that be?) I don't think he'd mind a knock on the door for a consultation.  This way, if anyone forgets the Church's view on gay marriage or birth control, he could just remind us all.

To my mind, a world without a Pope isn't that different than a world with a Pope.  It's not like the church is going to change it's mind on anything.  Maybe those folks at the Vatican would get to squirrel away a little more savings, not having to feed and clothe the guy, pay for trips to places where he blesses people.  Except they are going to have to continue to feed and clothe the guy, just not in the place the pope lives.

He's going to be living some twenty miles away.  Yes, that's right.  And other than not having to work, he is going to be maintaining the same style to which he has become accustomed.  In fact, after his last official act yesterday, the ex-pope was helicoptered out.  When I heard that, I imagined he was going to be taking a short vacation before settling in to retirement.  But no, he was being helicoptered out to his new residence, 20 miles away.

At least he went out with the same relevance the Catholic Church has exercised in my considerable lifetime.  Screw the fuel, and maybe they could have fed a few starving Romans with the cost of the trip, but, hey, it's the Pope.  I mean, the ex-pope.

On the other hand, let's give credit for knowing when to step down.  There's an old Catholic on a bench in Washington that would do well to follow the ex-pope's example.