Americans Want to Lower Health Care Costs

No kidding, right? But here is the interesting part: They are willing to accept trade-offs for lower health care costs — like more government control over plan particulars:

A new national poll indicates that most Americans are receptive to having more government influence over their health care in return for lower costs and more coverage.Sixty-three percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Friday said they would favor an increase in the federal government’s influence over their own health-care plans in an attempt to lower costs and provide coverage to more Americans; 36 percent were opposed.

The poll also suggests that slightly more than six out of 10 think the government should guarantee health care for all Americans, with 38 percent opposed.

Read the poll’s other findings here.

No Lower Limit to Republican IQ

Republicans are now making a big stink over Barack Obama taking his wife Michelle to New York City for a Broadway show and dinner — even though the trip isn’t costing taxpayers a penny:

President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama landed in New York City late Saturday afternoon for a Manhattan date night that was to include a Broadway show.

A spokesman read a statement from Obama: “I am taking my wife to New York City because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished.

The president traveled in a smaller, Gulfstream-type plane rather than the larger planes typically used as Air Force One.

The Republican National Committee slammed the outing in an “RNC Research Piece”: “As President Obama prepares to wing into Manhattan’s theater district on Air Force One to take in a Broadway show, GM is preparing to file bankruptcy and families across America continue to struggle to pay their bills. … Have a great Saturday evening – even if you’re not jetting off somewhere at taxpayer expense. … PUTTING ON A SHOW: Obamas Wing Into The City For An Evening Out  While Another Iconic American Company Prepares For Bankruptcy.”

The RNC’s Gail Gitcho added: “If President Obama wants to go to the theater, isn’t the Presidential box at the Kennedy Center good enough?”

This is the same Republican Party that cast zero votes for the president’s stimulus package and that’s refusing to accept stimulus funds for extended unemployment benefits and social services like food stamps in red states all over the country.

Judicial Temperament and Gender

This New York Times article by Jo Becker and Adam Liptak is a perfect example of how the traditional media can invent a controversy and then report it as if it were a legitimate issue. Under the title “Sotomayor’s Sharp Tongue Raises Issue of Temperament,” Becker and Liptak go on for two screens spinning a three-course meal out of cotton candy:

Federal Appeals Courts

There is a lot of discussion about Judge Sotomayor.  Some of that discussion revolves around her role as a member of the 2nd Circuit.  Unfortunately, most folks do not have even a basic understanding of the role of the federal appeals courts.

First, while the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) was written into the U.S. Constitution, the two levels of federal courts below that (U.S. District Courts and the U.S. Courts of Appeals) are creatures set up by Congress.

U.S. District Courts are trial courts.  If a person is “wronged” by a person from another state, they must file in a District Court.

Courts of Appeals are much more limited in what they can do.  From Wiki:

In the United States, both state and federal appellate courts are usually restricted to examining whether the court below made the correct legal determinations, rather than hearing direct evidence and determining what the facts of the case were. Furthermore, U.S. appellate courts are usually restricted to hearing appeals based on matters that were originally brought up before the trial court. Hence, such an appellate court will not consider an appellant’s argument if it is based on a theory that is raised for the first time in the appeal.

There are two extremely important things to take away from the Wiki piece.  First, if for whatever reason an item was not raised during trial, it will not be considered on appeal.  If your lawyer did not think of it during the trial, no matter how important, you are screwed.

Second, while the jury is the determiner of the “facts” the judge is the determiner of the “law.”  An appeal can raise questions on the application of the law, if the law applies or if evidence can be admitted or excluded.  But an appeal cannot (generally) speak to the validity of the evidence.  Courts have generally felt that the jurors in the trial court are the best deciders of the truth after having personally observed the witnesses.

Bottom Line: Rulings from Courts of Appeal in the U.S. most frequently revolve around whether the law as applied by the trial court judge has followed the intent of Congress in the writing of the law and any controlling precedent from SCOTUS or that particular circuit or any precedent from any other circuit.

Consequences

Would Saint Ronnie be rolling over in his grave?  From the Sac Bee via McClatchy.

North Korea’s Nuclear Test

The Guardian reports that the underground nuclear test was so powerful it triggered an earthquake.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

In Congress, that is — like Sen. Russ Feingold, who sent the following letter to Pres. Barack Obama after the latter’s national security speech on Thursday:

My primary concern, however, relates to your reference to the possibility of indefinite detention without trial for certain detainees. While I appreciate your good faith desire to at least enact a statutory basis for such a regime, any system that permits the government to indefinitely detain individuals without charge or without a meaningful opportunity to have accusations against them adjudicated by an impartial arbiter violates basic American values and is likely unconstitutional.

While I recognize that your administration inherited detainees who, because of torture, other forms of coercive interrogations, or other problems related to their detention or the evidence against them, pose considerable challenges to prosecution, holding them indefinitely without trial is inconsistent with the respect for the rule of law that the rest of your speech so eloquently invoked. Indeed, such detention is a hallmark of abusive systems that we have historically criticized around the world. It is hard to imagine that our country would regard as acceptable a system in another country where an individual other than a prisoner of war is held indefinitely without charge or trial.

You have discussed this possibility only in the context of the current detainees at Guantanamo Bay, yet we must be aware of the precedent that such a system would establish. While the handling of these detainees by the Bush Administration was particularly egregious, from a legal as well as human rights perspective, these are unlikely to be the last suspected terrorists captured by the United States. Once a system of indefinite detention without trial is established, the temptation to use it in the future would be powerful. And, while your administration may resist such a temptation, future administrations may not. There is a real risk, then, of establishing policies and legal precedents that rather than ridding our country of the burden of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, merely set the stage for future Guantanamos, whether on our shores or elsewhere, with disastrous consequences for our national security. Worse, those policies and legal precedents would be effectively enshrined as acceptable in our system of justice, having
been established not by one, largely discredited administration, but by successive administrations of both parties with greatly contrasting positions on legal and constitutional issues.

Via Marcy Wheeler.

Cheney and Obama: No Duel, No Contest

Chris Cillizza on the media’s “Cheney Vs. Obama” national security boxing match narrative:

The dueling speeches by President Obama and former vice president Dick Cheney are being cast as a showdown over national security but the tit for tat is a mismatch from the start.

Why?

Here are the last four personal favorability ratings for Obama: 56 percent, 68 percent 60 percent and 58 percent.

Here are the last four personal favorability ratings for Cheney: 37 percent, 18 percent, 19 percent and 30 percent.

What these numbers show clearly is that the American public is far more favorably inclined to listen to what the president has to say than they are to hear Cheney out.

Message matters in politics but only if the messenger is credible. In the context of a campaign, a negative attack only works when the person making the attack is trusted and believable.

Detainees

Go over to BooMan Tribune and read the excellent exchange between BooMan and commenter ‘maryb2004’ who is a lawyer.

Also, Glenn Greenwald has his usual superb analysis of today’s POTUS speech titled “Obama’s civil liberties speech.”

Decoration Day

. . .  it used to be called.  And I think it is a more fitting name than Memorial Day.

In light of Monday, 25 May, I offer the following that I received from a Navy veteran in the mail.

I watched the flag Pass by one day,

It fluttered in the breeze.

A young Marine Saluted it,

And then he stood at ease..

I looked at Him in uniform

So young, so tall, so proud,

With hair cut square

And eyes alert

He’d stand out in any crowd.

I thought how many men Like him

Had fallen through the years.

How many died on foreign Soil

How many mothers’ tears.

How many pilots’ planes Shot down.

How many died at sea.

How many foxholes were soldiers’ Graves

No, freedom isn’t free

I heard the sound of Taps One night,

When everything was still,

I listened to the bugler Play

And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times

That Taps had meant ‘Amen,’

When a flag had draped a Coffin.

Of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the Children,

Of the mothers and the wives,

Of fathers, sons and Husbands

With interrupted lives.

I Thought about a graveyard

At the bottom of the sea

Of unmarked graves in Arlington.

No, freedom isn’t free.

Enjoy Your Freedom & God Bless Our Troops

When You receive this, please stop for a moment

And Say a Prayer for our servicemen.

Of all the gifts you could give our Soldiers,

Prayer is the very best One.

And remember

Freedom isn’t free.