![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdAnd now we're back to the bigger ones. Unfortunately.
New cases per day are basically the same as peak. So literally all progress? Wiped the fuck out. Due in large part to Trump, and the entire Republican governing hierarchy for going along with him.
----- 1 -----
Abolish The Police
twitter.com/OlyStuart
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/OlyStuart/status/1275970392633434113
[THREAD]
Whelp.
Here's Thurston County WA Sheriff John Snaza declaring himself and his department above the law, and if you complain about it he'll tell you to go wear a mask.
His brother Lewis County Sheriff Rob Snaza called people who wear masks "sheep."
(1/2)
[EMBEDDED IMAGE: Thurston County Sheriff statement]
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 2 -----
Aaron Rupar
twitter.com/atrupar
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1271057188790906882
“This distinction between indoor & outdoor seems a bit random, & I don’t know what people would do when it rains” — Steve Mnuchin is oblivious to research showing that Covid spreads much more easily indoors than outdoors
[EMBEDDED VIDEO where Mnuchin doesn't understand or lies about COVID-19 spread, pick one]
----- 3 -----
Austan Goolsbee
twitter.com/Austan_Goolsbee
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/Austan_Goolsbee/status/1275570919965147141
[THREAD]
A thread on new work Syverson and I just released looking in depth at the impact shutdown orders (and repeals). Short version: they don't do much. Of the 60% drop in consumer activity, only 7 came from shutdown orders. Fear of the virus is the main thing.
[LINKS TO:
https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2020-80/
]
[THEAD CONTINUES AT UPPER LINK]
----- 4 -----
Weijia Jiang
twitter.com/weijia
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1276200179083939840
This week Dr. Anthony Fauci testified, “Deaths always lag considerably behind cases.”
Also— doctors agree that more testing leads to finding more cases.
But they also say if those cases are properly traced and contained, the numbers would go
[QUOTED TWEET]
Donald J. Trump
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
25 June 2020
The number of ChinaVirus cases goes up, because of GREAT TESTING, while the number of deaths (mortality rate), goes way down. The Fake News doesn’t like telling you that!
----- 5 -----
Idaho Reps’ Bogus ‘Special Session’ To Limit Guv’s COVID Authority Ends With A Whimper
By Matt Shuham
June 23, 2020 2:30 p.m.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/idaho-reps-bogus-special-session-to-limit-guvs-covid-authority-ends-with-a-whimper
The day started with high hopes.
A group of right-wing Republican legislators planned to take to the Idaho Capitol Building in an unprecedented special session, pass legislation ending the state’s COVID-19 public health orders, and triumph over a dictatorial governor who they say has exceeded his authority by attempting to steer the state away from a spike in pandemic-caused deaths.
Just a few hours later, though, things ended with a whimper: Without a quorum, the handful of legislators present simply read a proclamation, spoke their piece, and called it a day. The state that Gov. Brad Little (R) had transformed from “a Republic to Monarchy or a Dictatorship,” in the words of anti-government extremist Ammon Bundy, remained unchanged.
Activists seeking to thwart the state’s public health authorities were, justifiably, a bit disappointed in the outcome.
“We could live under this tyranny for a full ‘nother year,” said Sarah Clendenon, a former Senate candidate and part of the anti-vaccine group Health Freedom Idaho, in a Facebook live video after the day’s festivities were over.
“If you’re not willing to do that, then you better get busy taking action,” Health Freedom Idaho’s Miste Karlfeldt added.
“Taking action” was supposed to be on the agenda Tuesday.
Legal analyses from the libertarian group Idaho Freedom Foundation the Bundy-affiliated Freedom Man PAC had asserted that the legislators didn’t need the governor’s permission to call a special legislative session if the state was under “enemy attack.” The groups urged legislators to view the COVID-19 pandemic as such under state law, and exercise their authority to call a legislative session and limit the governor’s power.
But the attorney general’s office and a team of lawyers representing the legislature disagreed, and numerous legislators present Tuesday said they’d felt pressure from leadership not to attend.
So, from the start of Tuesday’s proceedings, passing any kind of legislation was off the menu. “This is not a session of the Legislature,” said Rep. Judy Boyle. “We do not have a quorum.
----- 6 -----
The US badly needs a wake-up call on the coronavirus pandemic
“Years of potential life lost” is the most sobering and sad Covid-19 statistic I’ve seen.
By Brian Resnick
23 June 2020
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/6/23/21299109/covid-19-pandemic-years-potential-life-lost
More than 120,000 people in the United States have died of Covid-19.
It’s an enormous number and, quite frankly, a failure of our national response, and of our leadership. But that number does not seem to be enough to inspire all Americans to wear masks, to inspire self-sacrifice to save lives, to inspire more politicians in states to action.
Instead, they are doing the opposite: signaling that things are getting better rather than worse. President Trump is holding massive indoor rallies. Rather than suppressing the pandemic, states and cities are easing up on social distancing, shying away from new restrictions even as cases in some states climb.
And so we are at a dangerous time in the pandemic. Cases are rising in many states, along with hospitalizations. Deaths have not started rising nationally yet, but researchers fear they’re coming: It can take, on average, 17.8 days from the start of symptoms to a Covid-19 death. America needs a wake-up call to this endless disaster, and fast.
The death count is almost certainly an undercount. It doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story. Recently, Harvard epidemiologists calculated a Covid-19 statistic that lands like a gut punch. The statistic is “years of potential life lost.” And perhaps it can help shake our collective numbness to the pandemic.
Psychology teaches us it’s too easy to grow numb to mass suffering and death. We need to fight against that instinct when we can. A life lost isn’t just a single number; it’s a trauma with a ripple effect, throughout our communities, and throughout time.
Imagining more than 138,000 years of human life lost
----- 7 -----
New research explores how conservative media misinformation may have intensified the severity of the pandemic
The three studies paint a picture of a media ecosystem that entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking steps to protect themselves and others
By Christopher Ingraham
June 25, 2020 at 4:48 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/25/fox-news-hannity-coronavirus-misinformation/
Coronavirus infections have surged in a number of states, setting the United States on a markedly different pandemic trajectory than other wealthy nations.
There are many reasons our response to the pandemic tied to more than 120,000 U.S. deaths has faltered, experts say, including the lack of a cohesive federal policy, missteps on testing and tracing, and a national culture emphasizing individualism.
In recent weeks, three studies have focused on conservative media’s role in fostering confusion about the seriousness of the coronavirus. Taken together, they paint a picture of a media ecosystem that amplifies misinformation, entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking concrete steps to protect themselves and others.
The end result, according to one of the studies, is that infection and mortality rates are higher in places where one pundit who initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic — Fox News’s Sean Hannity — reaches the largest audiences.
----- 8 -----
Tommy Beer
twitter.com/TommyBeer
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/TommyBeer/status/1276170348552208391
Here's the video of Scottsdale, AZ councilman Guy Phillips at an Anti-Mask Rally, shouting:
"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!"
(words uttered by both George Floyd and Eric Garner as they died while being forcibly detained by police).
As the protestors cheer him on:
[VIDEO AT LINK]
----- 9 -----
Trump says the coronavirus is 'going away.' His own task force disagrees.
New internal data obtained by NBC News show the White House is closely tracking big virus spikes around the nation.
June 25, 2020
By Jonathan Allen
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-says-coronavirus-going-away-his-own-task-force-disagrees-n1232061
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump keeps spinning a tale about COVID-19 that is at odds with his own administration's disease experts and data compiled by his own coronavirus task force, which was obtained exclusively by NBC News.
In Trump's telling, the deadly pandemic isn't really a serious threat to the public and rising infection rates are simply due to increased testing. "It's going away," he said Tuesday at an event in Phoenix.
But on the same day, the coronavirus task force produced an internal document showing that Phoenix had the highest number of new cases among the 10 metropolitan regions where the week-over-week change in infection rates spiked the most. Arizona's biggest city had recorded 13,169 new cases over the previous seven days, accounting for a jump of 149.2 percent over the previous week's infection rate.
The task force records also show that big surges have been recorded in Texas — around San Antonio, Houston, Corpus Christi, Lubbock and College Station — and in other population centers across the U.S., from counties in the Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa regions of Florida to Atlanta's Fulton County, Joplin, Missouri's Newton County, and California's San Joaquin Valley.
----- 10 -----
Texas Governor Says ‘Massive’ Virus Outbreak Sweeping the State
By Joe Carroll
June 24, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-24/houston-on-pace-to-exceed-intensive-care-capacity-by-tomorrow
Texas is experiencing a “massive outbreak” as Covid-19 cases multiply, Governor Greg Abbott said on Wednesday as hospital systems in the state’s biggest cities strained to handle the influx of patients.
Texas posted its worst day so far for new cases, with a jump of 5,551 to 125,921, according to the state health department. The 4.6% one-day rise exceeded the 3.7% seven-day average. Hospitalizations climbed by 7.3% to 4,389.
“Our infrastructure is overwhelmed,” David Persse, Houston’s director of emergency medical services, said during a media briefing on Wednesday.
Earlier, Houston-area hospitals predicted they may exceed intensive-care capacity as soon as Thursday. Such an overflow will force hospitals to tap so-called surge capacity as patient numbers grow, according to Texas Medical Center data. At current rates of infection, sustainable surge capacity would be exhausted in another 10 days.
----- 11 -----
Brad Parscale, Other Trump Staff in Quasi-Quarantine After Tulsa COVID Cases
The move, a campaign spokesperson said, was being made out of an abundance of caution.
Sam Stein, Lachlan Markay
Updated Jun. 25, 2020
https://www.thedailybeast.com/brad-parscale-other-trump-staff-in-quasi-quarantine-after-tulsa-covid-cases
Donald Trump’s reelection campaign manager, Brad Parscale, is one of a group of campaign staffers in quasi-quarantine after he attended a rally in Oklahoma last weekend where eight campaign aides tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh announced on a conference call Thursday that, “as a precaution,” staff who made the trip to Tulsa were “working remotely” and would be tested for COVID before returning to work. Asked by The Daily Beast in a follow up email if the self-imposed work isolation applied to the campaign manager, Murtaugh said, “Everybody who was in Tulsa, yes.”
Parscale returned to his home in Florida after the rally in Tulsa, and Murtaugh told The Daily Beast that he flew commercial.
Sources close to the campaign described the quarantine measure as a precaution, and said the campaign plans to step up its coronavirus testing regime going forward in order to avoid similar incidents. One source said dozens of staffers had attended the Tulsa rally.
----- 12 -----
ALT-immigration
twitter.com/ALT_uscis
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/1276340303792934918
In the middle of a PANDEMIC, AG Paxton Files Brief Asking SCOTUS to Declare Obamacare Unlawful
[LINKS TO:
AG Paxton Files Brief Asking SCOTUS to Declare Obamacare Unlawful
25 June 2020
Press Release
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/ag-paxton-files-brief-asking-scotus-declare-obamacare-unlawful
Attorney General Paxton today filed a brief asking the United States Supreme Court to declare Obamacare unlawful in its entirety. At the heart of Obamacare is an individual mandate commanding Americans to purchase health insurance the federal government deems suitable. The Supreme Court upheld that mandate in 2012 because it included a tax penalty for noncompliance. In 2017 however, Congress eliminated that tax penalty—meaning the individual mandate at the center of Obamacare is unconstitutional.
]
New cases per day are basically the same as peak. So literally all progress? Wiped the fuck out. Due in large part to Trump, and the entire Republican governing hierarchy for going along with him.
- Here's Thurston County WA Sheriff John Snaza declaring himself and his department above the law
- Mnuchin doesn't understand or lies about COVID-19 spread, pick one
- Shutdowns didn't tank the economy; fear of COVID-19 did.
- More lies and racism from Donald Trump, with correction
- Idaho Reps’ Bogus ‘Special Session’ To Limit Guv’s COVID Authority Ends With A Whimper
- The US badly needs a wake-up call on the coronavirus pandemic
- New research explores how conservative media misinformation may have intensified the severity of the pandemic
- AZ councilman Guy Phillips at an Anti-Mask Rally, shouting: "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" before ripping off mask.
- Trump says the coronavirus is 'going away.' His own task force disagrees.
- Texas Governor Says ‘Massive’ Virus Outbreak Sweeping the State
- Brad Parscale, Other Trump Staff in Quasi-Quarantine After Tulsa COVID Cases
- In the middle of a PANDEMIC, AG Paxton Files Brief Asking SCOTUS to Declare Obamacare Unlawful
----- 1 -----
Abolish The Police
twitter.com/OlyStuart
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/OlyStuart/status/1275970392633434113
[THREAD]
Whelp.
Here's Thurston County WA Sheriff John Snaza declaring himself and his department above the law, and if you complain about it he'll tell you to go wear a mask.
His brother Lewis County Sheriff Rob Snaza called people who wear masks "sheep."
(1/2)
[EMBEDDED IMAGE: Thurston County Sheriff statement]
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 2 -----
Aaron Rupar
twitter.com/atrupar
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1271057188790906882
“This distinction between indoor & outdoor seems a bit random, & I don’t know what people would do when it rains” — Steve Mnuchin is oblivious to research showing that Covid spreads much more easily indoors than outdoors
[EMBEDDED VIDEO where Mnuchin doesn't understand or lies about COVID-19 spread, pick one]
----- 3 -----
Austan Goolsbee
twitter.com/Austan_Goolsbee
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/Austan_Goolsbee/status/1275570919965147141
[THREAD]
A thread on new work Syverson and I just released looking in depth at the impact shutdown orders (and repeals). Short version: they don't do much. Of the 60% drop in consumer activity, only 7 came from shutdown orders. Fear of the virus is the main thing.
[LINKS TO:
https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2020-80/
]
[THEAD CONTINUES AT UPPER LINK]
----- 4 -----
Weijia Jiang
twitter.com/weijia
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1276200179083939840
This week Dr. Anthony Fauci testified, “Deaths always lag considerably behind cases.”
Also— doctors agree that more testing leads to finding more cases.
But they also say if those cases are properly traced and contained, the numbers would go
[QUOTED TWEET]
Donald J. Trump
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
25 June 2020
The number of ChinaVirus cases goes up, because of GREAT TESTING, while the number of deaths (mortality rate), goes way down. The Fake News doesn’t like telling you that!
----- 5 -----
Idaho Reps’ Bogus ‘Special Session’ To Limit Guv’s COVID Authority Ends With A Whimper
By Matt Shuham
June 23, 2020 2:30 p.m.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/idaho-reps-bogus-special-session-to-limit-guvs-covid-authority-ends-with-a-whimper
The day started with high hopes.
A group of right-wing Republican legislators planned to take to the Idaho Capitol Building in an unprecedented special session, pass legislation ending the state’s COVID-19 public health orders, and triumph over a dictatorial governor who they say has exceeded his authority by attempting to steer the state away from a spike in pandemic-caused deaths.
Just a few hours later, though, things ended with a whimper: Without a quorum, the handful of legislators present simply read a proclamation, spoke their piece, and called it a day. The state that Gov. Brad Little (R) had transformed from “a Republic to Monarchy or a Dictatorship,” in the words of anti-government extremist Ammon Bundy, remained unchanged.
Activists seeking to thwart the state’s public health authorities were, justifiably, a bit disappointed in the outcome.
“We could live under this tyranny for a full ‘nother year,” said Sarah Clendenon, a former Senate candidate and part of the anti-vaccine group Health Freedom Idaho, in a Facebook live video after the day’s festivities were over.
“If you’re not willing to do that, then you better get busy taking action,” Health Freedom Idaho’s Miste Karlfeldt added.
“Taking action” was supposed to be on the agenda Tuesday.
Legal analyses from the libertarian group Idaho Freedom Foundation the Bundy-affiliated Freedom Man PAC had asserted that the legislators didn’t need the governor’s permission to call a special legislative session if the state was under “enemy attack.” The groups urged legislators to view the COVID-19 pandemic as such under state law, and exercise their authority to call a legislative session and limit the governor’s power.
But the attorney general’s office and a team of lawyers representing the legislature disagreed, and numerous legislators present Tuesday said they’d felt pressure from leadership not to attend.
So, from the start of Tuesday’s proceedings, passing any kind of legislation was off the menu. “This is not a session of the Legislature,” said Rep. Judy Boyle. “We do not have a quorum.
----- 6 -----
The US badly needs a wake-up call on the coronavirus pandemic
“Years of potential life lost” is the most sobering and sad Covid-19 statistic I’ve seen.
By Brian Resnick
23 June 2020
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/6/23/21299109/covid-19-pandemic-years-potential-life-lost
More than 120,000 people in the United States have died of Covid-19.
It’s an enormous number and, quite frankly, a failure of our national response, and of our leadership. But that number does not seem to be enough to inspire all Americans to wear masks, to inspire self-sacrifice to save lives, to inspire more politicians in states to action.
Instead, they are doing the opposite: signaling that things are getting better rather than worse. President Trump is holding massive indoor rallies. Rather than suppressing the pandemic, states and cities are easing up on social distancing, shying away from new restrictions even as cases in some states climb.
And so we are at a dangerous time in the pandemic. Cases are rising in many states, along with hospitalizations. Deaths have not started rising nationally yet, but researchers fear they’re coming: It can take, on average, 17.8 days from the start of symptoms to a Covid-19 death. America needs a wake-up call to this endless disaster, and fast.
The death count is almost certainly an undercount. It doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story. Recently, Harvard epidemiologists calculated a Covid-19 statistic that lands like a gut punch. The statistic is “years of potential life lost.” And perhaps it can help shake our collective numbness to the pandemic.
Psychology teaches us it’s too easy to grow numb to mass suffering and death. We need to fight against that instinct when we can. A life lost isn’t just a single number; it’s a trauma with a ripple effect, throughout our communities, and throughout time.
Imagining more than 138,000 years of human life lost
----- 7 -----
New research explores how conservative media misinformation may have intensified the severity of the pandemic
The three studies paint a picture of a media ecosystem that entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking steps to protect themselves and others
By Christopher Ingraham
June 25, 2020 at 4:48 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/25/fox-news-hannity-coronavirus-misinformation/
Coronavirus infections have surged in a number of states, setting the United States on a markedly different pandemic trajectory than other wealthy nations.
There are many reasons our response to the pandemic tied to more than 120,000 U.S. deaths has faltered, experts say, including the lack of a cohesive federal policy, missteps on testing and tracing, and a national culture emphasizing individualism.
In recent weeks, three studies have focused on conservative media’s role in fostering confusion about the seriousness of the coronavirus. Taken together, they paint a picture of a media ecosystem that amplifies misinformation, entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking concrete steps to protect themselves and others.
The end result, according to one of the studies, is that infection and mortality rates are higher in places where one pundit who initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic — Fox News’s Sean Hannity — reaches the largest audiences.
----- 8 -----
Tommy Beer
twitter.com/TommyBeer
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/TommyBeer/status/1276170348552208391
Here's the video of Scottsdale, AZ councilman Guy Phillips at an Anti-Mask Rally, shouting:
"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!"
(words uttered by both George Floyd and Eric Garner as they died while being forcibly detained by police).
As the protestors cheer him on:
[VIDEO AT LINK]
----- 9 -----
Trump says the coronavirus is 'going away.' His own task force disagrees.
New internal data obtained by NBC News show the White House is closely tracking big virus spikes around the nation.
June 25, 2020
By Jonathan Allen
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-says-coronavirus-going-away-his-own-task-force-disagrees-n1232061
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump keeps spinning a tale about COVID-19 that is at odds with his own administration's disease experts and data compiled by his own coronavirus task force, which was obtained exclusively by NBC News.
In Trump's telling, the deadly pandemic isn't really a serious threat to the public and rising infection rates are simply due to increased testing. "It's going away," he said Tuesday at an event in Phoenix.
But on the same day, the coronavirus task force produced an internal document showing that Phoenix had the highest number of new cases among the 10 metropolitan regions where the week-over-week change in infection rates spiked the most. Arizona's biggest city had recorded 13,169 new cases over the previous seven days, accounting for a jump of 149.2 percent over the previous week's infection rate.
The task force records also show that big surges have been recorded in Texas — around San Antonio, Houston, Corpus Christi, Lubbock and College Station — and in other population centers across the U.S., from counties in the Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa regions of Florida to Atlanta's Fulton County, Joplin, Missouri's Newton County, and California's San Joaquin Valley.
----- 10 -----
Texas Governor Says ‘Massive’ Virus Outbreak Sweeping the State
By Joe Carroll
June 24, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-24/houston-on-pace-to-exceed-intensive-care-capacity-by-tomorrow
Texas is experiencing a “massive outbreak” as Covid-19 cases multiply, Governor Greg Abbott said on Wednesday as hospital systems in the state’s biggest cities strained to handle the influx of patients.
Texas posted its worst day so far for new cases, with a jump of 5,551 to 125,921, according to the state health department. The 4.6% one-day rise exceeded the 3.7% seven-day average. Hospitalizations climbed by 7.3% to 4,389.
“Our infrastructure is overwhelmed,” David Persse, Houston’s director of emergency medical services, said during a media briefing on Wednesday.
Earlier, Houston-area hospitals predicted they may exceed intensive-care capacity as soon as Thursday. Such an overflow will force hospitals to tap so-called surge capacity as patient numbers grow, according to Texas Medical Center data. At current rates of infection, sustainable surge capacity would be exhausted in another 10 days.
----- 11 -----
Brad Parscale, Other Trump Staff in Quasi-Quarantine After Tulsa COVID Cases
The move, a campaign spokesperson said, was being made out of an abundance of caution.
Sam Stein, Lachlan Markay
Updated Jun. 25, 2020
https://www.thedailybeast.com/brad-parscale-other-trump-staff-in-quasi-quarantine-after-tulsa-covid-cases
Donald Trump’s reelection campaign manager, Brad Parscale, is one of a group of campaign staffers in quasi-quarantine after he attended a rally in Oklahoma last weekend where eight campaign aides tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh announced on a conference call Thursday that, “as a precaution,” staff who made the trip to Tulsa were “working remotely” and would be tested for COVID before returning to work. Asked by The Daily Beast in a follow up email if the self-imposed work isolation applied to the campaign manager, Murtaugh said, “Everybody who was in Tulsa, yes.”
Parscale returned to his home in Florida after the rally in Tulsa, and Murtaugh told The Daily Beast that he flew commercial.
Sources close to the campaign described the quarantine measure as a precaution, and said the campaign plans to step up its coronavirus testing regime going forward in order to avoid similar incidents. One source said dozens of staffers had attended the Tulsa rally.
----- 12 -----
ALT-immigration
twitter.com/ALT_uscis
25 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/1276340303792934918
In the middle of a PANDEMIC, AG Paxton Files Brief Asking SCOTUS to Declare Obamacare Unlawful
[LINKS TO:
AG Paxton Files Brief Asking SCOTUS to Declare Obamacare Unlawful
25 June 2020
Press Release
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/ag-paxton-files-brief-asking-scotus-declare-obamacare-unlawful
Attorney General Paxton today filed a brief asking the United States Supreme Court to declare Obamacare unlawful in its entirety. At the heart of Obamacare is an individual mandate commanding Americans to purchase health insurance the federal government deems suitable. The Supreme Court upheld that mandate in 2012 because it included a tax penalty for noncompliance. In 2017 however, Congress eliminated that tax penalty—meaning the individual mandate at the center of Obamacare is unconstitutional.
]
