Here’s the great thing about the right-wing war against anything President Obama touches: you never have to dig deep to find an antigay nut.
Take the case before the Supreme Court today in which four plaintiffs insist, against all evidence to the contrary, that Congress really did not intend for tax credits for Obamacare to extend to anyone on the federally run exchange. This means only citizens in the 16 states that set up their own insurance exchanges would get subsidies. Everyone else would be out of luck.
The case, King v. Burwell, has been promoted by a veritable who’s who of the anti-Obama legal community, which has been frantically searching for ways to kill the measure. To make the case work, they had to recruit people who claim they were harmed by the Affordable Care Act. And it’s here that they went right to the lowest common denominator.
There are four plaintiffs in the case, one of whom is Brenda Levy. Levy told Mother Jones she has no idea how she was recruited for the case, saying she led “a quiet life.” And that’s true, if by quiet life you mean making your hatred of gay rights known to the world at large.
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Levy has written a string of letters to local Virginia newspapers. (Here’s one example.) She contributed $600 to the Proposition 8 campaign to overturn California’s marriage law. She has shown up at her local Boy Scout chapter to protest allowing gay kids to join the Scouts. “We want to leave sex and politics out of the Scouts,” Levy said at the 2013 protest. Her comments on YouTube include rants about how gays want “to subvert monogamy.”
Yes, however did conservative lawyers who want to destroy Obamacare stumble across Ms. Levy living her quiet life? Her inclusion in the case is a telling sign of which rocks the lawyers looked under and their inclination to look under those rocks in the first place.
So, as the Justices listen to arguments tomorrow that could lead to millions of Americans losing their health care coverage, just keep in mind the sterling individuals challenging the law. Based on her writing, Levy would probably rather be challenging marriage equality.
But she’ll settle for anything else the President favors.
H/t: Mother Jones
Dakotahgeo
Msssssssss. Levy appears to be a certifiable whacko case. Is this broad even causing a dent in the world as we know it? MMMmmm… doubt it.
jwtraveler
The anti-anythingObama people are all right-wing nuts. It’s not surprising that they’re also anti-gay.
I’m glad I live in NY. Obamacare isn’t perfect, but it’s already saved me thousands of dollars.
DCFarmboi
She makes a $600 political contribution but doesn’t have health insurance?
bobnla
@jwtraveler: …which I am paying for, jw. I don’t think I ever heard you say ‘thank you’. When did you get this feeling of entitlement? Were you born that way or was it the Dems who convinced you.
Dakotahgeo
@bobnla: If the TEApublicans paid their fair share of the taxes they owe, there would be NO poor people in the USA!
brent6696
The comment from @bobnia demonstrates who is really the entitled, or who feels entitled. You do, @bobnia and you resent jw for getting healthcare. Should jw go broke paying for medical bills, become destitute, and bankrupt while others that are lucky enough to have coverage with that HUGE lobby group of BIG INSURANCE not go bankrupt? Tell me @ bobnia what is your argument for not having universal healthcare? Are you better than others, and only you and yours are entitled? Do you think you should have it because you work for it, or you pay for it yourself, so freeloaders should not get it? You are a believer, a believer that you and yours are better than others. You believe the BIG INSURANCE lie that universal healthcare is a bad thing, that YOU will pay for it. You live in the richest country in the world, and yet you are also so greedy that you won’t share your care. You would rather keep your own feeling of superiority over the less advantaged in your society. The truth is that if everyone had universal healthcare, and no private insurance companies for basic healthcare, all Americans paying for private insurance now would pay less in the tax increase than they are for premiums now. Just look to my country, Canada, for a good example. And, no, my system is not perfect, but no one here has to claim bankruptcy for having cancer.
jwtraveler
@bobnla: For thirty-five years my taxes have paid for health care for poor people, old people, disabled people, prisoners, members of the military, government employees, elected officials and prisoners. They have paid to educate other people’s children (I have no children) and to fund several enormously expensive and pointless wars that I oppose. Now that I’ve lost my FT job benefits, I’m getting a little back. That’s where I get my sense of entitlement. Where do you get the idea that you deserve to live high off the hog while average working people can barely get by? Where do you get YOUR sense of entitlement?
jwtraveler
@brent6696: Thanks for an intelligent perspective from a rational country. In all other industrialized countries, and many developing countries, national health care covers health care for more people, with better outcomes and at lower cost. The American way of greed, and blaming the poor, hurts everyone, except insurance companies, pharmaceutical makers and for-profit hospitals. The privileged are biting off their noses to spite their faces.
SteveDenver
If you’re not a RICH WHITE CHRISTIAN HETEROSEXUAL MALE, conservatives don’t have sh!t for you. There is no argument.
Giancarlo85
@bobnla: Bj mcfrisky back with a different name. What an idiot. What entitlement? Republicans are all about corporate entitlements. Selfish right wing a-holes like you are part of the problem. Then again like most Republicans you probably have Obamacare too.
Giancarlo85
Health care for right wingers means it is a privilege. Not a right. If you aren’t rich go die in the street. That is what this idiot bob wants.
wpewen
@bobnla: What the hell makes you think you are paying for anyone’s health care? I got it, another Republican or Libertarian gay person who says “It’s mine, I earned it, I worked SO hard, everybody’s taking from ME.” Screw it. Go back to your financial closet. If it hadn’t been for the Democrats you would be eating cheerios from a hubcap.(My straight brother’s expression from 60’s black America). We both are white boys. And you sound like a gay white boy who’s real fucked up.
MiamiPrep
“plaintiffs insist, against all evidence to the contrary…”
Actually, there’s considerable evidence that the law was written as a carrot to entice states into setting up their own exchanges in order to receive subsidies for their enrollies.
The law’s Democratic drafters wanted the states to participate and assumed all of them eventually would. Conditioning subsidies on state action was meant to give Governors and legislatures an irresistible incentive to contribute to ObamaCare’s implementation and lend political legitimacy.
As the amici briefs point out, previous versions of the Affordable Care Act extended subsidies to the federal exchanges too. But that language was deleted in the secret negotiations to combine various Senate bills. After Scott Brown’s Massachusetts special election ended the Democratic supermajority, Democrats accepted and President Obama signed the final Senate bill as the last helicopter out of Saigon.
Saint Law
@bobnla: It’s great it upsets you so much.
Honestly peops like you should have everything they earn taken from them and diverted to a more worthy cause. I mean what else is the point of you?
brent
Here we go again with the liberal re-writing of history. No mention of the FACT that blacks and Hispanics who voted for Obama, also voted against gay marriage. No mention of the crossover vote from Romney voters in Maryland Minn. and Maine. PROOF: Washington Post article by Walter Olson on November 30, 2012
brent
@SteveDenver: How do you explain the cross Romney voters for gay marriage in Maryland, Minn. and Maine?
Giancarlo85
@brent: Actually the reason why same sex marriage was legalized in Maryland was because of African Americans. And Hispanics are said to be in favor of same sex marriage. You can play ignorant all you want, but please don’t lie about the facts.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/opinion/2015/01/26/opinion-marriage-equality-will-be-welcome-news-for-latinos/
Latinos support same sex marriage much in line with the general population. Pew Policy says 52%-34%, and other polls say a bit higher.
Giancarlo85
@Giancarlo85: Oh and I cited Fox News… that just says it all. LOL.
From 2012:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/majority-of-latinos-support-state-recognition-of-gay-marriage/
Here is another source more recent:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/hispanic-support-same-sex-marriage-2003-n39331
The nonpartisan institute found 56 percent of Hispanic Catholics it surveyed support same sex marriage, comparable to white Catholics, 58 percent.
This shows the fastly growing support among blacks for same sex marriage:
http://national.deseretnews.com/article/1171/Shift-in-support-for-same-sex-marriage-greatest-among-black-Protestants.html
Ironically this poll also says Catholics support it by 62%, and a majority of Latinos are Catholic.