Sen. Max Baucus explains why Ken Cuccinelli’s argument has no merit.  Here’s an excerpt:

I refer my colleagues to an article by Mark Hall, law professor at Wake Forest University. Professor Hall’s article is a comprehensive, peer-reviewed analysis of the constitutionality of a Federal individual responsibility requirement.

In it, Professor Hall concludes that there are no plausible Tenth Amendment or States’ rights issues arising from the imposition by Congress of an individual responsibility to maintain health coverage.

Professor Hall notes further that health care and health insurance both affect and are distributed through interstate commerce. And that gives Congress the power to legislate a coverage requirement using its Commerce Clause powers.

In other words, what Ken Cuccinelli is doing here is simply wasting everyone’s time and money. He’s also engaging in right-wing “judicial activism” of the sort he’d usually decry  when the shoe is on the other foot. In this case, it’s apparently ok, given that Cooch wants to push his own ideological agenda — whether on health care, the environment, abortion, homosexuality, or anything else.  Yeah, this is going to be a long four years.

UPDATE: The Democratic Party of Virginia has issued a statement. See after the “flip.” Thanks.

UPDATE #2: Bob McDonnell is 100% on board with Crazy Cooch. Is anyone surprised?

Yesterday, we witnessed a historic occasion: Congress passed the first comprehensive health care bill in American history. Thanks to this courageous action, Virginians — and all Americans — will be guaranteed high-quality, affordable health coverage.

Under this new bill, Virginians with pre-existing conditions will no longer be subject to insurance discrimination, Virginia small businesses will get tax credits to provide health care, and Virginia seniors will no longer fall victim to the Medicare ‘donut hole’ for needed prescriptions.

President Obama and our Congressional leaders deserve credit for this historic reform that will help thousands of Virginians. And this wouldn’t have happened without the strong and steady efforts of Virginia grassroots activists, including netroots, labor and advocacy organizations.

Unfortunately, our Republican state leaders like Ken Cuccinelli and Bob McDonnell are busy trying to throw up road blocks to reform.

The Office of the Attorney General should be the people’s law firm, not the piggy bank for Ken Cuccinelli’s political agenda. Attorney General Cuccinelli continues to waste Virginia taxpayers’ money at a record rate. Cuccinelli was elected to represent all Virginians as the state’s top lawyer, but instead he’s using our tax dollars to represent only the extreme political fringe of the Republican Party.

Ken Cuccinelli hasn’t lifted a finger to help Virginians struggling with unemployment, home foreclosures and predatory loans. Instead, he has filed two frivolous lawsuits against the federal government and tried to impose his political agenda on state colleges’ and universities’ non-discrimination statutes.

The Attorney General knows that this health care lawsuit is nothing but political theater. He ought to get back to doing the people’s business, and stop wasting our money.

PROLOGUE

QUESTION: What has been most devastating to American families, our Republic Society, our Middle Class and our national financial stability?

ANSWER: Our wars from 1775-2010, Our ever increasing Corporate Greed and Our Politicians corrupted by financial contributions from BIG Business.

To create “Change We Can Believe In” that will actually correct our course away from War, Corporate Greed and a bought and paid for Government, we need a seismic shift in our way of doing business.  K.I.S.S: An educated voter rejecting the status quo Conservative proclamation: everything’s RIGHT with “America the Beautiful.”  Face it, we’ve been played by politicians holding a hand dealt by Corporate handlers, from a stacked deck. It’s all in the marketing. It’s protective PR. It’s “Showtime.” While we’ve been rushed to judgment by media coverage regurgitating religious like belief in the perfection of all things America – The Greatest This, The Biggest That, The Best Whatever, in the shadows from which the puppeteers operate, we have been transformed into the land of screaming pundits, with societal fractions fighting a class war.  “We the People” have been cast in the role of minions doing the grunt work for overlords, while the Bush League offered up our youth as cannon fodder.  BUT don’t despair, for we outnumber the men to whom even Dick Cheney must genuflect. All we need is a little “Unity of Purpose,” a pause in the street-unwise partisan hype and a bit of historical education for Beauty to take on the Beast and fight the good fight!

STEP ONE:

A seismic change in our priorities & focus can result from  any  number of people acting out, “Enough.”  Think back thirty years past, when the Beef Industry suddenly raised the price of beef all across “the Land of the Free.”  Clearly the corporate fix was in. While it had taken a President to shame the Steel industry into reversing such betrayal of the American public, the cow people’s greedy plot was branded “Halt” by American Women with pioneer spirit, who without emails or National movement, purchased fish & chicken instead.  The Corporate cowboys got the message:  Don’t mess with Mother buying food for her family.   Wives, Mothers, girlfriends too, won the day by stopping an onslaught of beefer greed.  “Where’s the Beef” crabs backed away, looking to rustle up a Texas cowboy with an amoral Vice to serve up to the White House.  In 2000, they came back to town to take on the rebels and put “Home of the Brave,” down.

ROUND TWO: Identify the true enemies of American Freedom and the best method to eradicate them. Yes Al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden are a serious threat to us, but so are American based International Corporations & their political puppets. Sipping Southern Comfort like tea in their granite monuments to themselves, they look down on us from on high, as ants fighting over a crumb, amongst ourselves.  On the inside looking out, a smile then a grin reflect from within, their sheer delight at our plight; so well misdirected are we on their behalf, our fear and anger at each other make them laugh.  Dwellers in Corporate towers above, are the enemies of the State, playing monopoly until for us, it’s too late.  Like Brando in “The Formula” said, “We are the Arabs,” so why not Reagan in Lincoln’s bed.  Ignored until we vote in FDR, Kennedy or Barack, they hasten to tighten their money strings, conducting a chorus of talking point schemes.  Thus kept in line with media spin, it’s Never, Never Land for us again.

And The MONEY Makes THREE: Gather in ever increasing union, outside any Corporate Headquarters near you: BANKS, Pharmaceuticals, Health Insurers and Oil Companies.  Sing, hum or just stand silently with T-shirts and signs that let them see through their smoked mirrored Board Room windows, “We found you;” “We See You;” “We know who you are;” and “We Know What you Did.”  Following the example of Gandhi, King and the women who rolled back beef prices, each of us can cast a giant shadow on the secret powers.  Although, the corporate villains of United Health Group, Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson, AETNA, CITI, PFIZER, CIGNA, PNC, Abbott Labs, Wellpoint, Wells Fargo, and MERCK have many dollars in their bins, “We the People” are digging in for the count:  Census, Voting, sit and stand-ins.  No more buying from those who abuse our bottom line and trust.  Investing in those for whom we are more than a line item profit is what we must.

EPILOGUE

Even good men need help to surround themselves with the advice and input of honorable men, but sadly there is little honor for us to depend in Congressional Conservatives, The Supreme Court, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., Alan Greenspan, and possibly even Timothy F. Geithner. Perhaps it’s Never, Never Land again.  Even a good President like Barack Obama needs more than our vote. He needs our help to keep those who gave him 26 million away from the subject, long enough to get “America the Beautiful” back on track for Health Care democratically, in our Republic.  He needs too, all our emails, Congressional visits and calls, to renew his vision to provide the protection of  MEDICARE  For  ALL!

Giving HOPE a Helping Hand,

Marcello Rollando

A Reasonable Voice for a Rebirth of Our Humanity,

Freedoms, Honesty and the Rule of Law

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I spent all weekend reading about nothing but the politics & process of health insurance reform. And that seems to be all the morning papers are focused on, too. I know journalists are neck deep in this stuff, but can’t they pull themselves out of the muck for one morning and explain what this health insurance reform bill means for real people?

What if you’re at the office coffee maker this morning & a coworker asks “Well, what does this thing DO anyway?” What should you say? Let’s try to cut through the clutter:

• 40 million people who don’t have health insurance right now will get it thanks to this bill — 24 million through tax credits & new state-based exchanges and 16 million who earn less than 133% of the poverty line through their new Medicaid eligibility.
• You can keep your health insurance when you get sick. Let that sink in. Also, your insurer won’t be able to demand you get prior approval before you go to the emergency room.
• The bill will cut the deficit by $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years and include major cost savings through common sense steps, like Medicare changes intended to deliver care more efficiently and at a lower price.

What about the political implications? Again, let’s focus not on things like reconciliation that no one will remember a month from now, but on long-term impacts:

• Republicans gambled on being able to obstruct this bill, ignoring policy and focusing solely on dealing Democrats a defeat — and lost. Badly. As David Frum first pointed out and Josh Marshall echoed this morning, if voters ultimately like this bill, Democrats will get 100% of the credit, and Scott Brown’s election may look less like the tip of the iceberg than the continuance of the GOP’s Ice Age.
• It’s hard to overstate how much opposition Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid were able to overcome — not just from the Party of No, but from reluctant members of their own party, the right wing noise machine, and millions upon millions of dollars spent by groups like the Chamber of Commerce trying to kill reform.
• The lasting image of the Republican opposition will be John Boehner trembling with rage and someone shouting “baby killer” because anti-abortion language was insufficiently draconian, all while refusing to condemn Tea Partiers who hurled epithets at anyone different from them. Good luck selling all that to independent voters this fall.

There’s plenty more to do, especially in the Senate, which has lagged behind the House, particularly on clean energy & climate and financial reform bills. And there’s the public option and immigration reform and deficit reduction and more. But that’s for another day.

In a town where Democrats so regularly have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, this is a day to celebrate. You may live a long and full and happy life and never see a greater progressive victory. Enjoy it.