Actually it’s important for progressives to support Senator McCaskill for a number of reasons. But, as the GOP figures out how to keep the Obamacare tantrum going strong, Dave Weigel gives us one more reason to value McCaskill, a Democratic Senator in a purplish state who, nevertheless, makes no bones abut her support for health care for all (see here and here):

… Basically, whatever Mitt Romney says, and however he seems to dodge a question, the political factors that will govern his presidency are the make-ups of the House, Senate, and states. For months, Tea Party groups have been focusing on Senate races, not on the presidential race. They want and need enough votes to force a vote on “Obamacare” repeal in reconcilation — meaning, they’d need only 50 votes and Vice President Luis Fortuno (I’m guessing!) to scrap the law….

Of course, this means that if we want to keep Obamacare and make it even better, we’ve got to hustle harder than ever to keep not only McCaskill, but Barack Obama in Washington.

State Senator Brad Lager (R-12), who is also candidate for Lieutenant Governor,  hyperventilates on the Obamacare mandate-as-a-tax ruling of the Supreme Court :

I am disappointed in the Supreme Court’s ruling today, that upheld the single largest tax increase in the world.

Got that? Then take a look at the estimated revenue effect of the mandate (in GOP speak, the “enormous new tax”) compared to past tax increases (note especially the Reagan tax increase):

Does it look to you like the chart above show us the “biggest tax increase in the history of the world”? Looks to me more like what Josh Marshall labels it, “clearly one of tiniest ones in history.” Somebody ought to let Mr. Lager know that hyperbole isn’t always a wise rhetorical choice if one doesn’t want to appear foolish.

There are, though, some additional new taxes in the Affordable Care Act – which fact inspires horror in Rep. Todd Akin (R-2) (via facebook):

Americans will have to pay at least $675 billion in new taxes because of Obamacare. I support full repeal.

And the problem, Todd, is what exactly? It will insure a majority of the currently uninsured Missourians. Add to that almost inestimable benefit, the fact that it will prevent price gouging on the part of insurance companies – $64.5 million in insurance overcharges will be refunded to Missourians this year alone –  and it seems like a good bargain to me when we compare what we get to the cost in new taxes. As TPM’s Brian Beutler notes when he does the numbers:

… even if you include the sum total of all the revenue-raising provisions in the ACA – and there are many taxes in it – it’s still smaller than the Reagan, Bush and Clinton tax increases.

Kevin Drum offers the best summary of  the taxing (to the GOP) nature of new Obamacare taxes:

It’s fair for Republicans to complain that ACA includes a bunch of new taxes. It does. Most of them fall on high earners and corporations, not the middle class, but they’re still taxes. However, the “biggest tax increase in history” nonsense is crazy, and no news outlet interested in accuracy should let it pass without challenge.

See also “Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): when right wingnut talk radio gasbags feed you your talking points…“

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) made a campaign stop outside a local custard shop on U.S. Highway 50 on the western side of Sedalia late this afternoon. She took questions from local media and individuals in attendance.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) at a campaign stop in Sedalia, Missouri on July 1, 2012.

Listening to a question.

On the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act:

[….] Question: ….I’d like to have your comment on, uh, the Supreme Court’s, uh, decision on the, uh, health act.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Well, uh, at first it’s important to know that one of the most conservative chief justices in the history of our nation held up this law. And now we’re gonna have a chance, um, to, for Missourians to see what it really is instead of what they’ve been told it is. There are so many untruths that are being told about this reform. And it is important that Missourians get a chance, they’re gonna be surprised that it is gonna bring the insurance companies to heel. It’s gonna tell them to quit playing around and try to avoid giving care. It’s gonna cut down on how many times they can say no to claims. It’s gonna make insurance more accessible and affordable, and it is not a massive tax increase. Um, and so it is really not what people have told them and I’m looking forward to people realizing, uh, what it really is and I think they’re gonna like it very much if they’ll just give it a chance.

Responding to a question from a local radio reporter.

What I’m worried about is they’re putting all these lies out there about this legislation to distract people from what they want to do, which is ironic since they want to privatize Medicare. What they want the seniors to do is have to wrestle with insurance companies. Um, and I think if people would just take a deep breath and go, wait a minute, wait a minute, they’re gonna take away the Medicare that we rely on, uh, I think that would have, um, the kind of impact that most Missourians would reject. And so I think they’re doing some of this distortions, try to distract people from what their plans are.

[….]

Question: ….they brought up a point that the Supreme Court decision might not be so good because now, it was their opinion, that the funding for it would have, would go through the budget re, reconciliation fees, method, which does not require a sixty vote method to bring it up to a vote.

Senator McCaskill: Well, um, I think the Republicans are saying that they, they want to repeal the whole thing. [voice: “Right.”] They want to repeal, um, being able to stay on your parents policies until you’re twenty-six. They want to repeal the ability to get insurance if you have preexisting conditions. They want to repeal a free preventative care, uh, for people, um, to make sure we cut down on the high cost of disease ’cause they’re not caught until late in the game.

Um, now, to do that they would like to take this to a reconciliation, they would like to take the Senate and do it through reconciliation which take fifty-one votes. But, to do that they’ve got to defeat a bunch of Democrats in November. So what I’m hoping is that Missourians will take time to go to healthcare dot gov and learn the truth about this legislation so they’ll realize that, um, it, it’s time that we really tell the insurance companies that, um, they can’t spend half of every premium dollar they collect on big salaries for their CEOs and hiring more people to deny claims. They have to spend eighty percent of what they take in in claims now under this law on your health care. And if they spend more than that, um, on administration they have to rebate the money to the policy holders. And those checks will start going out in September.

So, I think that people think this is a government plan, it’s not. They are all private insurance companies. They’re being told now that it’s a massive tax increase, which is just a flat out lie. It’s just not true. It’s a hundred and forty-three billion dollars of tax cuts in this bill for small businesses and, and, and small families. And, uh, and an ability for people to get affordable insurance if they don’t get insurance at work. And if you get insurance at work nothing in this bill’s gonna change that.

And the only people that have to pay the penalty for not getting insurance are, is the guy who decides he’d rather buy a new Harley Davidson than pay for health insurance and then he lays it on the pavement out here and wants all of us to pay his health care bill. Uh, it’s just for the freeloaders….

For those of you who’ve been savoring the excesses of GOP rhetoric in the wake of the Supremes’ decision that the Affordable Care Act (ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare) is indeed constitutional, Billy Long (R-7) provides a special example of the GOP herd mentality. His official statement carefully regurgitates some of the golden oldies that have served his GOP partisans so well in their war against anything Obama, especially the healthcare reform legislation:

I, along with the overwhelming majority of Missourians who voted against Obamacare in August of 2010, believe this is a harmful law that destroys the quality of health care in this country.  This law enacts drastic cuts to the Medicare program and institutes a board of bureaucrats whose sole purpose is to deny care to seniors.  This law is wrong for the country and it is certainly wrong for Missourians.

Ooooh! – bureaucrats who want to deny care to seniors! Could Long be talking about death panels!  I’d be  scared to death if this whopper hadn’t been laid to rest eons ago – it was PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year in 2009 and it hasn’t gotten any truer in the interim.

As for the “Medicare cuts,” I think Long must mean cuts to the subsidies and overpayments now handed out to private insurers and healthcare providers – because the ACA absolutely does not cut Medicare benefits in any way. Somebody ought to tell Billy that his own party voted overwhelmingly to support the Ryan budget which would make the very same cuts – while also privatizing and diminishing the entire Medicare program. Billy must have been wool-gathering when that vote was taken.  

Long claims that Americans don’t support Obamacare. And a recent poll showed that a sizeable number don’t – as long as you’re talking about the legislation in the collective abstract. Most of the individual provisions, however, get very high approval marks. You could say that Americans overwhelmingly approve of Obamacare, but they just don’t know it. Do you maybe think that GOP lies like those about death panels and Medicare cuts might have something to do with this bizarre situation?  

Of course Billy follows the lead of his betters and tries to jump on the whole mandate-as-a-tax finding of the Supreme Court  – and he makes an interestng point:

However, the Court also ruled the states can refuse to participate in the expansion of the Medicaid program without losing all of their funding.

The result is that beginning in 2014 many people who cannot afford health insurance will experience a tax increase. …

That, of will only be the case if Missouri’s GOP-controlled legislature chooses to refuse the billions in federal dollars that will be made available to support that Medicaid expansion over the next several years – and even then, the situation will be mitigated somewhat by the fact that the ACA mandated insurance exchanges will make subsidized insurance more widely available.

If Long is really concerned about this possibility, perhaps he should be talking to some of his recalcitrant state-level GOP colleagues instead of railing against Obamacare. We know from sad experience (think Jim Lembke and his filibuster of federally-funded unemployment benefit dollars), that if there is an opportunity to posture in front of a chanting crowd of Tea Partiers, there are plenty of pols in Jefferson City who’ll gladly sacrifice the uninsured poor of Missouri.  

That sounded so good this morning I just had to repeat it here.

President Barack Obama talks on the phone with Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in the Oval Office, after learning of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” June 28, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Last week:

Boehner to U.S. House on healthcare ruling: don’t gloat

June 21, 2012|Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Thursday told the Republican rank-and-file there will be no celebrating in Congress if the Supreme Court rules against President Barack Obama’s sweeping healthcare reform law.

“No one knows what the court will decide,” Boehner said in a memo to fellow Republicans. “But if the court strikes down all or part of the president’s healthcare reform law, there will be no spiking of the ball.”

Yeah, like anyone in his party would’ve followed that advice.

Now they can’t celebrate, but we will.

Over at the Maddow Blog, Kent Jones has some fun with Missouri’s own Rep. Todd Akin (R-2) – it’s hard, though, to figure out which is funniest, Akin’s hysterical prose or Jones’ satirical response. Go, read, laugh.  

Then cry when you remember this clown is running for the Senate to replace Claire McCaskill, who, no matter what else you may think about her, is both sane and intelligent.

*Link corrected.  

From the actual press release from the junior senator from Kentucky:

“….Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional. While the court may have erroneously come to the conclusion that the law is allowable, it certainly does nothing to make this mandate or government takeover of our health care right,” Sen. Paul said….

[emphasis added]

Yes it does, moron.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)

….The Constitution vests the whole judicial power of the United States in one Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as Congress shall, from time to time, ordain and establish. This power is expressly extended to all cases arising under the laws of the United States…

….It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is….

….So, if a law be in opposition to the Constitution, if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the Court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution, or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law, the Court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

If, then, the Courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

Those, then, who controvert the principle that the Constitution is to be considered in court as a paramount law are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the Constitution, and see only the law.

This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written Constitutions. It would declare that an act which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void, is yet, in practice, completely obligatory. It would declare that, if the Legislature shall do what is expressly forbidden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the Legislature a practical and real omnipotence with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure.

That it thus reduces to nothing what we have deemed the greatest improvement on political institutions — a written Constitution, would of itself be sufficient, in America where written Constitutions have been viewed with so much reverence, for rejecting the construction. But the peculiar expressions of the Constitution of the United States furnish additional arguments in favour of its rejection.

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the Constitution….

[emphasis added]

Rand Paul is a fucking idiot. We lose to these people?

Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D) released a video on the Supreme Court decision:

Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D): This is certainly a historic day in this country, but not, but not a day to deepen our divisions or throw up our hands and celebrate and say our work is done. For all Americans, Republicans, Democrats, the states and the federal government must continue to work together to make sure healthcare is functional, full, and fair. Because of healthcare, millions and millions of seniors like my ninety year old father are getting free preventive services, children are not being denied coverage, and young adults are covered under their parents’ plan. These are big and important differences helping millions of Americans focus on their jobs and quality of life instead of worrying about what will happen if they and their family members get injured or sick. I know there are many who disagree with this decision. I hear from you. I know that there are many of you, but I pledge to work with and listen to any and everyone who calls. You need information about this unprecedented plan to insure all Americans. And so, if you have questions please don’t hesitate to call my office. I look forward to hearing from you. This is, I repeat, a truly historic day.

…instead of trying to draw to an inside straight.

Previously:

Ask Nixon about Medicare for All (June 27, 2012)

Gov. Jay Nixon at Missouri Boys State 2012: “I just assumed you were a Democrat…” (June 27, 2012)

“…Um, the, uh, I don’t think that, I don’t think you should have, uh, uh, a, uh, I don’t think you should have the federal law that orders people that they have to buy insurance. I never have supported that…”

Blue Girl, on Facebook:

Jay Nixon How did that bet you placed on SCOTUS turn out for you? Not so good, huh? I hate to say it — but it serves you right. Now start acting like a Democrat, damnit!

Governor Jay Nixon (D) at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on June 17, 2012.

From the question and answer session after Governor Jay Nixon’s speech at Missouri Boys State on June 17, 2012:

….Question: Uh, you’re a very successful Democrat in a red state and you’ve got one term left. Would you consider a presidential run in twenty sixteen?

Governor Jay Nixon: Eh. [laughter] Um, this you got one term left thing, we got this whole election thing coming, you know [laughter]. It’s, uh, um, you know, I, I’m focused, uh, uh, you know, I, I focus my energy on, on, on getting done as much as I can do and, and the, and the responsibility people have given me, which is significant. Uh, and I, I don’t, uh, I don’t spend a lot of time looking ahead to the next game. This is a job that, um, comes right at you. I, I do think that, that one of the reasons we’ve been able to be, uh, that I’ve been able to be successful is I’ve, I’ve become a much better listener. Uh, I think that I don’t come at things in as hard a value driven way as some people do in this, uh, uh, in, in this political world now. Um, I, I don’t really much enjoy anymore, uh, you know, this, you know, attacking people. So, uh, uh, I’ll continue to, uh, uh, focus the next hundred and fifty days on seeing if I get the, uh, uh, the great honor to have the, the public give me another shot at, uh, uh, this race, uh, I mean, this race to, to serve the state again. Um, and, uh, you know, kind of, in, in a, history finds you, you don’t go find history….

“…history finds you, you don’t go find history…”

The magic eight ball says, “The timing wasn’t very good, was it?”

The Affordable Care Act is, apparently, constitutional. The right wingnuts have a sad.

Via Twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

Unbelievable! It appears SCOTUS has ruled the individual mandate is upheld as a permissible ‘tax’. We will continue to work to repeal! 9:17 AM – 28 Jun 12

Believe it.

Update:

Get your bumper sticker from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: