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So, the ACA was put in place to make sure that people could get affordable insurance, regardless.

Many employers offer insurance as a benefit that a worker's pay is taken off the top t

The ACA says that if an employer wants to do this, they must comply with a certain amount of rules.

If the employer doesn't want to offer this, then they can stop offering health insurance as a benefit. The employee will get the money taken off the top and get their own insurance.

If I have the above correct, then the "least obstructive option" to those who don't like the ACA mandate is to not offer the benefit.

And if the above is true, WHY HAS NO ONE, EVEN THE PROGRESSIVES, TALKED ABOUTH THIS? IT WASN'T EVEN MENTIONED IN THE SUPREME COURT ARGUMENTS.


Someone explain who knows more that me.  Without the conspiracy, please.

Are you talking about the "least restrictive means" test? That test only applies to the government's actions. It only questions whether the government could achieve the same interest through a less restrictive means, not whether there is some alternative action that could be taken by the plaintiff. The assumption being that if the government is going to burden a right, it has the burden of proving why it should be allowed to.

That wasn't what I was referring to at all.

The SC decision has several changes that did not previously exist in law.  The decision itself is a real mess.

#1) That some for profit business that meet certain conditions, can have and practice a religion on its own.

#2) That through this, the for profit business can discriminate against its employees, even if they don't share the same beliefs.

#3) That the corporations opinion on facts, and not the actual truth of the facts themselves is what matters.

#4) That only some religious beliefs qualify for this, while others do not.

I think the rule is that businesses over a certain size must pay a fine if they don't offer health insurance.

Still doesn't change anything, Hobby Lobby no longer offering insurance at all is the easiest way out of this without the courts changing laws.
Of course that had no chance of happening.  There is no conspiracy here, it is all out in the open to be seen if you look hard enough.

The Republicans want to tear down the ACA, and since they failed to do it all at once, they are now trying to do it a piece at a time.  This case had little to do with how the Hobby Lobby owners actually feel about contraception coverage for their employees, this is all about going after Obama, they (the Republicans) are obsessed.

Obama and the Democrats who blindly follow him want to preserve the ACA as they envisioned it.  Obama doesn't want companies dropping their health insurance plans, he thinks that will reflect poorly on his plan.  Obama personally couldn't care any less if employees get contraceptive coverage or not, he only wants to defend his "legacy".

Probably.  I was just stating what the prosecutors used to claim she wasn't entitled to self defense.  A claim that I think is ridiculous by itself.

The story behind that woman's case is her ex forced his way into her home, she then went to get her gun. She then had the encounter with him, still inside her house, in which she fired the warning shot.  They used the fact that she went to get her gun after the initial confrontation to say that it wasn't self defense.

I guess Florida law would be okay though if she kept in on her at all times then pulled it out and blasted him a few times in the chest when he first came in.  That seems to be what they are saying.

I'm not too surprised.  I was hoping for at least manslaughter but didn't really expect we'd get it. The prosecution put on a terrible case, I'm not sure if they are just stupid or they threw it on purpose. I'm leaning towards the latter.

I dont mind the divergence from the OP because its mostly about subjective resonances, but i will ask you this: What is the USA using its money on rather than the sciences? Perhaps this can be infered thru the GDP distribution over a transition of years.

The US and by this I mean the wealthy in the US are putting their money in finances with the hope of acquiring more money.  This of course causes economic bubbles which eventually have to burst.  What is more since this adds no real value to the economy like the production of goods or real services it is by itself nonproductive.  It is in fact counter productive since the only places it can derive value is by taking from other sectors of the economy including those actually producing value.

The plan isn't as nutty as it seems.  The coin will be small and not have that much platinum in it, just have a high dollar value on the face of the coin. The idea behind it is it is a way to print money instead of borrowing.  The reason it sounds so ridiculous is because it is the only way for the president to do this without congress is with the a literal reading of a specific law. The law allows the treasury to issue platinum coins of a design and valuation of the Treasury Secretaries choosing.  Supposedly it was meant for commemorative coins. The law did however come after the debt ceiling crisis between Gingrich and Clinton, so some say it was worded the way it is just for this use.

Despite how stupid it sounds it is actually the best idea I've seen to deal with the debt limit and debt in general.  In our current system money is only generated by debt, debt that requires more in payment than what was borrowed. This means for the economy just to continue at the same level overall debt has to continuously increase or some debts have to be unpaid. Whining about the governments debt in such a system is even sillier than minting a trillion dollar platinum coin to get around it.

Ideally we'd have congress decide that a certain amount of spending in excess of taxes can just be printed instead of borrowed, but with our current congress,  both republicans and democrats, there is no chance of that happening. Anyway, there is also no chance Obama would take the platinum coin option, as you've said it sounds (and to some degree is) rather silly and he doesn't want that as his legacy. Besides it would piss off the banks and the rich for the government to print is own money, that is another reason it just won't happen.

The media is currently too caught up in the deficit hysteria, which pretty much all of the behind the scene people in Washington are pushing.  Talking about how there is either stagflation and/or giant bubbles in commodities is contrary to the "official view" that the economy is on the way to recovery.

I'm not sure that they actually believe that they will become rich, though they may see it as a possibility.

I think it goes like this. No-one wants to see themselves as a bad person, so they try and rationalize away all their flaws as not really flaws.  These people are really just extremely selfish and materialistic. They don't want to give up any of their things and are unconcerned if they hurt anyone in their quest for more things. They then try and rationalize these beliefs as perfectly okay or even normal.  However they change their minds when they are on the receiving end. All that talk was just bullshit attempts at rationalizing their greed and lack of concern for others as okay. Since they really just want to maximize their amount of things, they'll readily take any given to them. They also expect others to pay for any damage done to them or their things, even though they don't want to do the same.  If questioned on this they will try and rationalize why they really deserve it, or why they were more truly wronged.

Of course this is extremely hypocritical but it is far easier to be hypocritical than to even just accept your flaws as flaws, much less actually do anything about them.

This is basically a way to get around the current teacher contracts.  Why negotiate pay/benefit cuts when you can just fire them all then hire some of them back at reduced salaries and benefits.  You can not only save money but get rid of any and all the "problem teachers" at once.

So you just got elected to the House and you've just finished the first week.  What is there for a married, family values member of the GOP to do?

If you said go looking for a hook-up on Craigslist then you just might be former Rep. Christopher Lee (R-NY26).
If in doing this you lie about your age and occupation you might be smart. If do do that but use your actual name, your normal e-mail address, and send a topless "muscle pic" so there can be no mistaking who you really are, you would be a complete moron, which it turns out Mr. Lee is.

http://gawker.com/#!5755071

The Pre-existing conditions bit was already broken and worthless.  They could still charge them more then most people could afford to pay, even with the law.  Healthy people not buying insurance, then getting only when they are sick is not going to be the issue.  The reason young (and usually healthy) people are less likely to have insurance is because heir jobs are less likely to provide it, and they are less likely to be able to afford it on there own.

I'm think this ruling is probably going to stand.  Not because it isn't unconstitutional, because most of the justice's couldn't care less about that.  As Requia said Kagan would let the government do anything, and Roberts and the conservative judges will do what ever the Repubs really want. With that they have to choices, throw out the law they all say they hate, or uphold it and give the Repubs something more to run against, I'd bet on the latter (though I'm more willing to bet this ruling get overturned before that, and the Supreme's refuse to take it up.)

Banning Shariah Law.... FFS the Constitution already fucking does that...

You do realize the the Teabaggers don't believe in separation of church and state.  They just think it bans a national religion, they think they you can enforce all the religious laws you want to and are okay with that as long as the religion in question is fundamentalist christianity. 

Requiring limits being put on trading programs would work but will be highly resisted. I think this one trade lacked limit because they were fulling intending on dumping what they were selling, just not as fast or for as low as the trades ended up happening.

I also don't think running simulations would help at all, mainly because you don't know how other programs will react.  This one trade didn't cause the flash crash itself, it was just the initial spark, it required the interaction of this one program and several other trading programs to cause the crash.  While these programs work fine on their own they will sometimes cause things to go crazy when they start interacting with each other.

I don't think anyone would assume that that "plan" would work, including O'Keefe.  I assumed he wasn't trying to actually bed her, but just really creep her out and see her reaction.