Sunday Open Thread [3.15.15]

The next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court will be…. Barack Hussein Obama II? Yeah, not likely to happen, but I would enjoy the absolute apocalyptic meltdown the right would have should President Clinton nominate him.

Amy Walter: “Ask anyone on the Acela corridor who the frontrunner and/or likely nominee for the GOP is/will be and you are most likely to hear the name Jeb Bush. After all, he’s going to have bucketloads of cash. He’s vacuuming up GOP talent for his campaign staff. He’s substantive and comfortable talking policy. And, unlike many of his contemporaries, he’s yet to make a significant flub on the campaign trail. There’s just one little thing obstructing his path to the nomination: GOP voters.”

Jonathan Chait on why there is no Republican Plan B for replacing Obamacare: “All the Republican predictions have failed. Just this week, the Congressional Budget Office once again revised down its cost projections for the law, which is now projected to cost 20 percent less than originally estimated. Given conservative certainty that the opposite would occur, you might expect some revision. But conservatives have not abandoned or even reduced their fervent opposition to Obamacare. This is because the right’s specific, measurable predictions about the law are subordinate to deeper, philosophical beliefs.”

“They oppose the law’s methods (more taxes, spending, and regulation) on principle. They believe those methods will fail to achieve their stated goals, but even if they succeed, they oppose them anyway. Republicans cannot design a partywide health-care alternative because they cannot reconcile the specific things most Americans want from the health-care system (access to affordable insurance, protection from discrimination against preexisting conditions) with their ideological commitments.”

And that is why I have always said the Republican Plan for Healthcare is exactly the situation Obamacare was passed to address: Republicans believe only those who can afford it should get healthcare, as it is a privilege in their eyes and not a right. And if you have a preexisting condition, or if you have met your illness or lifetime cap on insurance payments, or if you are a woman, tough shit.

We learned last year that many of the effects of climate change are irreversible. Sea levels have been rising at a greater rate year after year, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates they could rise by another meter or more by the end of this century. If all the ice melted, this video shows you the result, and the cities listed will be destroyed.