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Steve Benen: Every bit as interesting as the Obama administration’s big win today in a case challenging the Affordable Care Act are the judges who agreed with the White House’s reasoning:
A conservative-leaning panel of federal appellate judges on Tuesday upheld President Barack Obama’s health care law as constitutional, helping set up a Supreme Court fight.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a split opinion upholding the law. The court agreed to dismiss a Christian legal group’s lawsuit claiming the requirement that all Americans get health insurance is unconstitutional and violates religious freedom.
Full post here
More at the WH site here
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Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt sent this to reporters after Mitt Romney said in an interview that President Obama shouldn’t have written “a check first” to the auto industry:
“If Mitt Romney was President, there would not be an American auto industry. Industry experts have been clear: our auto companies would have faced liquidation if Mitt Romney had his way and more than 1 million Americans would have lost their jobs. Mitt Romney must explain to Michigan voters this week why he would have let Detroit go bankrupt. The loan package the President extended to the auto industry – combined with a restructuring plan – was essential to ensuring that the auto companies return to profitability and produce cars that will keep them competitive in the future.”
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Thanks VC
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Crooks and Liars: Multimillionaire Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told employees at a steel fabrication plant on Monday that government employees “are making a lot more money than we are”.
….. “The tax payers shouldn’t have to have money taken out of their pay checks to pay people in government who are our servants who are making a lot more money than we are.”
…. The former Massachusetts governor has a net worth estimated at up to $250 million.
More here
Thanks Loriah
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Steve Benen: We’ve been exploring for nearly a year the “sabotage” question: are Republicans trying to hurt the nation’s economy on purpose, simply to undermine the Obama presidency?
…. Pollsters, however, have shied away from the question — until very recently. Today, a new survey from Public Policy Polling, commissioned by Daily Kos and SEIU, put the question to respondents nationwide.
“Q: Do you think the Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jumpstart the economy to insure that Barack Obama is not reelected or not?”
Yes: 50%
No: 41%
Unsure: 10%
…. this is a rather striking shift.. We’re talking about the American mainstream accepting the idea that a major political party, for the first time since the Civil War, actively trying to undermine the strength of the United States in a time of economic crisis.
Full post here
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First lady Michelle Obama at the Riggs Library of Georgetown University where she delivered remarks and answered questions from students who participated in a day-long ‘immersion experience’ which included pairing with college mentors, taking campus tours, visiting classes and learning about the transition from high school to college.
