The affordable care act upheld

Like all other supporters of health care reform I was more than just pleased when the PPACA was upheld. There is a lot of talk about the impact of this law on business growth, and this talk is important. In France companies stay small so that they will not have to abide by that nations many regulations, the thought is that companies in the U.S will do the same. 
That is a concern that should not be ignored, but the intended consequences of this landmark legislation should not be lost among fears of what companies will or will not do. 
Children are allowed to remain on their parents insurance.
Children with pre existing conditions cannot be denied insurance. Adults will no longer be denied in 1214.
Medicaid expansion will bring back lost coverage for millions. The caveat to that is this: states are allowed to refuse to participate in expanded Medicaid. This seems bad, but in states like Utah that are going to refuse this program, they will not lose Medicaid funding for not doing so. The way the law was originally written states who refused expanded Medicaid would have lost federal funding.   Utah had already made it clear that they were willing to steal insurance from thousands of citizens rather than participate in the PPACA. So now if Utah still refuses at least people will not lose any insurance, for now. There are groups fiercely fighting to make sure that Utah accepts these expanded funds. 
The Supreme Court decision is not the end. Orin Hatch is still fighting a provision that would allow disabled people who need assistance with daily tasks to stay at home using Hospice care instead of living in expensive nursing homes. 
The decision of the high court does make provisions inn the Health Care law legitimate, so opponents like Hatch will have a harder time fighting against it. That is, if people write him and express their feelings. 
This is not the end, but it is a bright spot in a dark year. 

State of the union.

This years state of the union served as both an address on how the country is doing, and a chance for president Obama to outline his plan for the future, and as a very public set up for his presidential campaign As a result of a very dysfunctional congress, it felt like some of what was said was the same as last year. There were a lot of things I liked about it though.
The president talked about lowering the tax rate for corporations. I am not in agreement with this idea, as I feel that corporations who gain from our labor should have to contribute to this country. I did like what Obama said about taking tax breaks away from companies that outsource their jobs.
I appreciated his comments about enforcing the reforms that would prevent poor bank practices, although I think this came a little too late.
I was impressed with what he had to say about education. The idea that businesses will help community colleges train people for jobs that they will be able to move right in to is a great idea. I agree with the notion that education is essential to the success to this nation, so I was pleased to see the president demand more from congress in the form of school funding.
The president suggested that states change their policies for letting high school students drop out. He challenged them to only allow students to drop out after they turned 18. This is a really good idea, because more and more jobs are not happy with applicants who have a GED rather than an actual diploma. Dropping out of school is a big decision that can have negative effects for that student's future life. It is for similar reasons that we make students wait until they are 18 to join the military,  we want those who join to be at an age to understand more fully what they are doing, we should do the same for those who are thinking about dropping out of high school.
He entered more fully into campaign mode when in what seemed a total disconnected thought he mentions equal pay for women.
I was impressed with how he shut down many of the attacks against him, and stood by his decisions. He came across as optimistic while the Republican who gave the rebuttal sounded pessimistic and antagonistic.

Debt ceiling press conference.

While John Boehnner and Barack Obama spoke to the nation about the unprecedented debt ceiling fight, I was celebrating the pioneers entrance into Utah.

The Mormon pioneers had been blamed for causing problems in every state they lived in, so they wanted to be free. In much the same way, the poor in this country are being blamed for causing problems in regard to the debt. The vast majority of us just want to be allowed to live in peace. It seems that no matter what we give, it is not enough. The Mormons attempted to make peace by agreeing to certain rules established for them. In the end it was not enough, and they were driven out of Ohio, and later Illinois. In 1996 congress set up rules for the poor in an attempt to make peace with Republicans. Since then we have lived under these rules, rules written by Republicans. Now, as happened with the Mormons, we are being asked for more. We are being asked to give up our homes so that other people can have them. Any debt deal that takes away from those who can least afford it, and asks for no revenue, is asking for an entire class of people to give up on ever rising above poverty. This is too high a price, the common sense solution is simple, we need both revenue and some intelligent spending cuts. No job was ever created by taking food and shelter away from needy families.

I have said this before, but it bears repeating. At the time that our social safety nets were established, we had more revenue. Since then, the need for these programs has not decreased, but the tax rates have plummeted. If you stop bringing in money it is impossible to sustain any program. As Obama said, we need a balanced approach.

What Donald Trump said

Earlier in the week Donald Trump appeared on the view and stated that he has doubts about whether Barack Obama is a citizen.
He seems to think that it is perfectly reasonable to demand that the president carry his birth certificate around with him everywhere he goes. Aside from being incredibly stupid this is an invasion of privacy that Mr. Trump would never allow to be perpetrated on himself.
As someone who constantly has to prove myself to the GOP I completely understand why Obama refuses this ludicrous request. See in America if you don't look white you must be hiding something. Also if you spent any time outside of the United States you are clearly un-American.
Look so many people have requested to see the president's birth certificate that Hawaii is overwhelmed. Yet this birther movement persists, why? I will tell you. When a group of people want something to be true they will ignore all evidence and reason. If the president came on television tonight with his birth certificate and the little foot print thing from his hospital; these people would claim it was a fake. The guy can't catch a break from these people. Why should he have to play their games.

My response to the state of the union address

First of all the overall tone of the speech was good, I felt that the mixed seating gave it a good bi-partisan feel.
There was a lot that I liked, I thought it was important to bring up education and to talk about alternative energy.
I have to say though that Obama in my view made a big mistake by not coming out with a more detailed description of the spending freeze and how much it would reduce the deficit by. A lot of people wanted to hear it and by not putting it out there he has just encouraged a new herd of Tea Party "patriots" to run for office. That is not good for anyone.
I thought it was ill timed to ask for more spending, first of all it's not going to happen, and secondly it puts the new health care reforms in jeopardy. The way he asked for money for infrastructure and then effectively threw Medicaid under the bus was uncalled for. You cant tell me that a 5% spending freeze is only a cut to Medicaid. If Obama thinks that by leaving the under-insured high and dry is going to help reign in these Tea Parties he is mistaken. The Tea Party rallies will continue because they only want two things, for him to fail and to keep health care in the hands of the privileged.
As for the Republican response. What can I say Paul Ryan is a douche box. This guy spent the whole rebuttal talking about repealing health care reform and comparing us to Greece. Someone should explain to him that Greece has twice the social program spending as we do and a retirement age that is lower than ours. He said that the private sector has historically done more for the poor than government. I don't think even he could believe this bull shit. I would ask him to look at Ireland, who adopted the U.S. free trade system when the ecconomy went south the poor there had nothing. Maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on the president, after all the only thing these Republicans want to hear is a repeal of health care.
The Tea Party response was weird and of course made reference to WWII but it was to the point and short.

Obama on "the view"

Okay, at first I thought it was a bit silly for the president to go on "the view". Then I started hearing the right wing criticism and just what a huge deal they were making out of it. First of all this is the information age, that is why we here more from our political leaders than we used to. If Obama refused to go on television he would be seen as out dated and lame.
So the right wing media are mad that he didn't go speak to boy scouts. Wait a minute, are not these the same people who criticized the president for speaking to kids last school year? Are not these the same people who think he is a : Marxist, capitalist, socialist terrorist? You would think that the people at Fox news would be grateful that this evil white man hating foreign demon isn't speaking to young children. After all he might try to turn them to his dark side of Marxist communist socialist race war government policy.
Give me a break, you can't have it both ways folks either he's the spawn of the devil, or a respected leader.
If he had spoken to the boy scouts these Fox news blowhards would have found fault with that as well.