6th Circuit panel upholds individual mandate

Oh snap.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the health reform law’s requirement that nearly all Americans buy insurance, the first appeals court to rule on the constitutionality of the law.

The panel of three judges — two nominated by Republican presidents — upheld the mandate 2-1, with one GOP-nominated judge ruling in favor of the mandate and the other dissenting.

And not just any GOP-nominated judge - Judge Jeffrey Sutton, who was nominated by George W. Bush and was described by Justice Antonin Scalia as "one of the very best law clerks I ever had."

Yet I'm sure if I wade into the murky abyss that is Free Republic, he'll be derided as a socialist RINO pawn of the Obama administration.

Greta: Prosser, Bradley, and Abrahamson should all resign

A rare instance in which I agree with Greta van Susteren.

If Justice Prosser put his hands on Justice Bradley, he should be charged criminally. You would be. Call the police on him. Let it get handled the way it should – through the criminal justice system (which of course the Supreme Court oversees!)

If Justice Bradley charged Justice Prosser, she should also be charged with assault. If not, she should step down simply for being part of this ridiculous in chambers fight and in order to make a very public statement that the Wi Supreme Court is not a political branch but the justice one – the one that enforces and interprets the laws for the citizens...

And finally the Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson…she should step down immediately for the benefit of the citizens of the state. She is not leading – she is collecting allies. It is no secret that the Wisconsin Supreme Court, under her leadership, is dysfunctional at best... Her dissent was not the dissent of a person with an intellectual disagreement with the majority seeking to explain her difference (the honest reason for a written dissent.) Her dissent was to get even. It is shameful. This was more evidence of the outrageous political nature of the court that she has led (and must take responsibility for.)

At some point, Wisconsin, you need to decide what's more important - grinding your various political axes or perhaps reclaiming some degree of respectability in the eyes of the rest of America. I assure you, as an out-of-state Badger, I've heard the question "what the hell is up with your state?" more times in the last six months than I care to enumerate.

You're all kinds of embarrassing right now. Giant protests, ridiculous tent cities on the Capitol lawn, tea party guys punching off-key singers in the rotunda, a governor trying to sign a budget in a felon-owned business, Gordon Hintz melting down on the floor and then working through his stress with a "massage therapist", recalls, lawsuits over recalls, Supreme Court justices re-enacting last weekend's UFC pay-per-view, zombie protesters interfering with a Special Olympics ceremony, Fred Clark talking about slapping around a female constituent... need I go on?

The sad thing is that I could. I didn't even talk about the husband-swapper running against Holperin, the Lee Meyerhofer impersonator running against Dave Hansen, or the teacher running against Harsdorf who's apparently got enough free time at her teaching gig to coordinate political activity with work resources.

When I lived abroad during the Bush presidency, expatriates joked about how sometimes it was easier to just say we were Canadian. Now, when people ask where I'm from, I'm just going to tell them I'm from Minnesota.

Take ball. Go home.

Another reason to be proud of Wisconsin? Er, something like that...

Sen. Ron Johnson’s new to the Senate, but he’s starting to understand the power of one senator to stand in the way of the chamber’s business.

The freshman Wisconsin Republican, a favorite of tea party activists, threatened Tuesday to delay Senate business if Democrats don’t move forward with a budget plan.

“I will begin to object,” Johnson said in a brief Tuesday afternoon floor speech. “I will begin to withhold my consent.”

He later backed down and let the Senate go ahead with its business.

But Johnson had once again shown that a single senator can tie up the legislative process by refusing to agree to routine “unanimous consent” agreements that quickly dispense with complex Senate procedures. Those objections can be overcome by 60-vote supermajorities, but a senator determined to stand in the way of all business can effectively grind the chamber nearly to a halt by forcing all actions to undergo the rigorous cloture process.

Looks like Mr. Change Washington has turned into Mr. Business As Usual already. Anyone surprised? Show of hands?

Yeah, I didn't think so. Why roll up your sleeves and get dirty when you can just whine from the sidelines? Too many whiners in Congress, not enough doers.

John Nygren is a lazy mofo.

For those who didn't see it, John Nygren released a statement on his embarrassing inability to conjure up 400 valid signatures for his challenge to Sen. Dave Hansen.

"I’m disheartened the Government Accountability Board did not approve the over 400 nomination signatures submitted by my campaign. I mean, it wasn't much over 400. A couple dozen over. Which is practically like one bad petition's worth. I know I should be better with numbers - I'm on JFC after all. But I digress.

I have told voters all over this district that it wasn’t the fact that Dave Hansen left Wisconsin this year that motivated me to run, it’s that Dave Hansen left the people of northeastern Wisconsin years ago when he voted for billions of dollars of job-killing taxes supported by his liberal friends in Madison. This has nothing to do with my present predicament, but why not take a gratuitous shot at Dave Hansen while I can. Did I mention he ran over his granddaughter with a car? Because he did. Backed right over her.

The simple fact that over 15,000 individuals in northeastern Wisconsin signed papers to recall Dave Hansen shows the distrust and frustration the taxpayers of this district have in their Senator. The simple fact is also that of those over 15,000 individuals who signed recall petitions, I only needed 400 valid signatures to get my name on the recall ballot. That's less than 3% of those who signed the recall petitions. How incompetent am I that in all these weeks, I couldn't even get 3% of those people to sign my petitions?

Since Dave Hansen has chosen legal maneuvers to silence the voters of northeastern Wisconsin, I feel obligated to my supporters to fight this decision and pursue further legal options. Those options are damn near hopeless, unless like many conservatives, I now conveniently argue that I am above the rule of law, and that there were good reasons that I couldn't comply with clearly established deadlines that all other candidates complied with successfully. Because there was a good reason.

I'm lazy as hell."

I may have embellished a little.

Here's what is truly appalling. Let's look at how many signatures other recall candidates turned in.

GOP protest candidate Rol Church (Wautoma): 874
GOP protest candidate Otto Junkermann (Green Bay): 799
GOP protest candidate Isaac Weix (Menomonie) 741
GOP protest candidate James Smith (La Crosse): 736
GOP protest candidate John Buckstaff (Oshkosh): 725
GOP protest candidate Gladys Huber (Mequon): 482
GOP candidate John Nygren (Marinette): 424

John Nygren got outworked by six people who don't even have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. He got doubled up by retiree Rol Church, and nearly got doubled up by retiree Otto Junkermann. How pathetic is it that protest candidates, many of whom were recruited and encouraged to run by Senate leadership, are outworking a guy that Senate leadership actually wanted to win?

So who exactly does this fall on? Does it all fall on John Nygren? Should someone tell Scott Fitzgerald to do a better job of managing his candidates, even if it detracts from his ability to be featured in puff pieces by the MJS? Is anyone running the show in the Senate GOP caucus?

Just when you think they couldn't possibly be that incompetent, the Senate GOP finds new ways to surprise all of us.