I get paid to stay at home and do nothing!

If memory serves  me well, up until a couple of days ago, I had never ever taken a sick day through all these years of teaching.  Not once.  A few years ago, a student--Robert--who had taken a few classes of mine, joked loudly that I never cancel classes, unlike other faculty.  Unfair to the students, he said.

That streak ended.

The flu bug did not kill me, but merely inconvenienced me.

I am lucky that my employment always came with sick leave that I could take if I ever felt unwell.  But, this is not always the case with all the people.  

Back in the old country, it is only the minority who are employed in what we academics call the "formal sector" get such a privilege.  To the overwhelming majority, going to work when ill is to be expected.

That's how life was everywhere on this planet.  We were all poor and unhealthy.  As societies get prosperous, I expect us to become more caring about our fellow humans. But, even in the uber-rich USA, there are millions who don't have the privilege that I have.  Like the couple mentioned in this report:

Mark Moyer, 20, and Sarah Rogers, 22, were waiting for a note from Dr. Marna Rayl Greenberg.
Because of their hacking coughs, their boss at a local shipping warehouse had told them to leave and not return without a doctor’s note.
But Dr. Greenberg, the hospital’s vice chair of emergency medicine, produced notes certifying only that they were sick. “You need to be seen again, and then I can write you another one saying you’re well,” she said.
The couple, who had matching hand tattoos of the date they met, were clearly struggling. Their jobs pay only $9 an hour, and until they recently moved in with her parents, they had been living in a car.

If they don't show up for work, they lose their hourly wages.  

"Financial need, medical experts say, plays a big role in spreading flu: many Americans go to work sick because they cannot afford to miss days. "  

At least out of selfishness, I would  expect the heartless Americans to provide a safety-net for the struggling people.  Because, the virus spreads.  Easily.  "People with flu can spread it to others up to about 6 feet away. ... To avoid this, people should stay away from sick people and stay home if sick."

But, the family-friendly, Jesus-loving, white supremacist party that now controls all the branches of the federal government couldn't care about fellow humans. It is on a mission to shred to pieces even the little bit of safety net that we have managed to put together since the New Deal.

Oh well; even Jesus will not be able to forge a New Deal with the current version of the Grand Old Party!  The maniacal Republicans will rather excommunicate him first!

SCOTUSblog on ObamaCare: The way to get news

At about a minute before 7:00 am, Pacific Time, I tuned into SCOTUSblog, which has long been my source for understanding in plain English what the highest court delivers in legalese.  The wonderful folks there did it, again.  Like with this plain speak at 7:32:

Amy Howe: In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding. 

Reports were that at one point, the live "readership" at SCOTUSblog exceeded half a million!  Who cares for CNN or MSNBC or Faux Noose or CBS or ABC or .... 

Obamacare overturned in a 5-4 vote. Game over!

So, if the court does end up overturning it--partially or completely--in a 5-4 vote as projected by this team, will it affect the credibility, or even the legitimacy, of the Supreme Court?  But then (ht):

Who, after all, is going to lead the charge against the Court?  Liberal journalists like Linda Greenhouse and Dahlia Lithwick, whose human capital is invested in covering the Court?  The fraternity of elite liberal  lawyers who served as Supreme Court clerks, for whom undermining the Court’s legitimacy means undermining the value of their own prized credential?  Liberal constitutional law professors, who are as invested as anyone in the Court’s significance?  (It’s hard enough to get people to read one’s latest article on “A Kantian/Weberian Approach to the Fourth Amendment” when the Court is as important as it is now!)  Liberal activist groups and think-tankers, who still treasure the Court’s rulings on abortion, due process rights for terrorism suspects, term limits, and more, and who hope that a future Court will recognize a right to gay marriage?  Liberal Congressmen, when Congress’ popularity rating is well below the Court’s, and who have hardly shown themselves to be constitutional scholars? (Not to mention that journalists like Lithwick are on record suggesting that it’s “weird” for members of Congress to be considering the constitutionality of legislation.  “Isn’t it a court’s job to determine whether or not something is, in fact, constitutional?” wrote Lithwick.)
At most, a ruling against the ACA will have the same effect as Bush v. Gore or Citizens United, or Roe v. Wade and Boumediene for that matter; a fair amount of caterwauling, with the Court as an institution remaining unscathed.

I can't imagine any legitimacy issues even if the court overturns the entire act: most Americans don't ever seem to be bothered to understand that the court is the third leg of the government stool and, therefore, don't pay much attention to it anyway.  An overturning will merely translate to Obama's and the Democrats' electoral losses, and the Republicans look at enormous setbacks if the court ends upholding the law if both Kennedy and Roberts end up siding with liberal bloc.

Republicans are under the shirt and over the bra?

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