This morning the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of one of the health care reform challenges. Adam Liptak writes for the New York Times:

The Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals from just one decision, from the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, the only one so far striking down the mandate. The decision, from a divided three-judge panel, said the mandate overstepped Congressional authority and could not be justified by the constitutional power “to regulate commerce” or “to lay and collect taxes.”

The appeals court went no further, though, severing the mandate from the rest of the law.

On Monday, the justices agreed to decide not only whether the mandate is constitutional but also whether, if it is not, how much of the balance of the law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, must fall along with it.

SCOTUS will hear arguments in March and will probably hand down a decision in June, smack in the middle of the general election campaigns.

Ezra Klein has a backgrounder on the legal issues in the case.

Just spotted:

Thirty years ago, a newly elected Ronald Reagan made a fateful judgment: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Taxes for the rich were slashed, as were outlays on public services and investments as a share of national income. Only the military and a few big transfer programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits were exempted from the squeeze.

Reagan’s was a fateful misdiagnosis. He completely overlooked the real issue — the rise of global competition in the information age — and fought a bogeyman, the government. Decades on, America pays the price of that misdiagnosis, with a nation singularly unprepared to face the global economic, energy and environmental challenges of our time.

Washington still channels Reaganomics. The federal budget for nonsecurity discretionary outlays — categories like highways and rail, education, job training, research and development, the judiciary, NASA, environmental protection, energy, the I.R.S. and more — was cut from more than 5 percent of gross domestic product at the end of the 1970s to around half of that today. With the budget caps enacted in the August agreement, domestic discretionary spending would decline to less than 2 percent of G.D.P. by the end of the decade, according to the White House. Government would die by fiscal asphyxiation.

Both parties have joined in crippling the government in response to the demands of their wealthy campaign contributors, who above all else insist on keeping low tax rates on capital gains, top incomes, estates and corporate profits. Corporate taxes as a share of national income are at the lowest levels in recent history. Rich households take home the greatest share of income since the Great Depression. Twice before in American history, powerful corporate interests dominated Washington and brought America to a state of unacceptable inequality, instability and corruption. Both times a social and political movement arose to restore democracy and shared prosperity.

The author, Jeffrey Sachs, believes we are at the dawn of a new progressive age. I certainly hope so.

I didn’t watch the GOP debate last night. In fact, I forgot there was a debate last night. Mittens declared stoutly that if Barack Obama is re-elected, Iran will get nuclear weapons, and if he is elected, Iran will not get nuclear weapons. I take it Mittens has more pull with the nuclear disarmament fairy.

This is from WaPo:

At the first GOP debate that focused on foreign policy, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former House speaker Newt Gingrich indicated that if either of them were commander in chief, they would be willing to use military force against Iran, if tightened economic sanctions and support for the Iranian opposition did not work to deter nuclear weapons development in the country.

“If all else fails, if after all of the work we’ve done, there’s nothing else we could do besides take military action. Then of course you take military action,” Romney said.

Gingrich agreed: “If in the end, despite all of those things, the dictatorship persists, you have to take whatever steps are necessary to break its capacity to have a nuclear weapon.”

All kinds of military experts warn that neither a ground invasion nor a bombing campaign against Iran would likely succeed, and there’s a real question whether the U.S. has the capacity for such a military strike any more.

Ooo, but aren’t we so impressed at how cute little Mittens and the Newt look when they’re trying to act manly and chest-thumpy and show how mean and tough they are?

Herman Cain said he would assist the opposition, but “would not entertain military opposition.” What the bleep does that mean?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he would impose economic sanctions on Iran’s central bank — a move the Obama administration has backed away from, for fear of the economic damage that might occur if it disrupted international oil markets.

Hey, you know what they say … drill, baby, drill.

Wow, do they ever hate Mittens. Yet they can’t seem to get rid of him. Brent Budowsky writes,

Mitt Romney is having great trouble winning the loyalty of Republican voters above the 25 percent level. About 75 percent of Republicans do not support Romney as their first choice. In fact, for many of these GOP voters Romney is their fourth, sixth or even eighth choice behind the conservatives now running and the conservatives who chose not to run.

Mittens is like the zombie candidate who won’t die. The only reason he has stayed near the top of the polls, Budowsky says, is that Republican voters are divided amongst the remainder of the candidates. And the remainder of the candidates are such losers that they wilt almost as soon as a spotlight hits them. Herman Cain has given it about as good a run as anyone has, but now his popularity is sagging under the weight of sexual allegations.

(BTW, righties, do pay attention and notice that “liberals” are not the primary force behind dragging those old allegations into the light. We are not the ones interested in undermining Herman Cain’s campaign at this point.)

(Also too, this is one of the dumbest things I’ve read yet about the matter.)

Budowsky wants conservatives to rally behind one not-Mittens candidate, or else take steps to drag the selection out so that it can be brokered at the convention. Jeb! Jeb! Jeb!

But John Batchelor at Daily Beast says Mittens will win the Iowa caucus, because Mittens is the only one whose got the money in the game to get people to the caucus.

“It’s gonna be Romney, and the party is miserable,” observed a Republican agent just back from the presidential contest in Iowa. “One day Bachmann, the next day Perry, then another day Cain, now Newt. The flavor of the day will pass. Why do many Fox contributors become candidates? It gets you in the debates and polls. But it doesn’t stick. Iowa is about paying an organization to show up. They are used to it. It’s an entitlement to Iowa. First in the nation means mercenaries, buying up the talent, then bringing the people you paid for to the caucus.”

Is he saying that caucus participants are being paid to vote? Or am I misreading something?

Nate Silver says that both Mittens and Cain are slumping a bit in the polls, but Newt is surging. Will Newt maintain flavor of the month status going into the early primaries (for which everyone says he lacks the organization on the ground to do that well), or will it be Rick Santorum’s turn by then?

I hadn’t prepared anything new for this Armistice Day, but do see this “Lives During Wartime” feature at the New York Times. And did you know that Maj. Dick Winters died earlier this year?

At ease, soldiers.

According to a new CBS poll, Herman Cain remains the favorite in the GOP presidential horse race, and second is … Newt?

Newt’s ratings keep going up; both Mittens and Cain have lost a few points recently.

That giggling you hear is coming from the White House. Meanwhile, don’t miss Erick Erickson’s mash note to Herman Cain. It’s quite remarkable.

Oh, and it’s Armistice Day.

[Please don't forget the FUNDRAISER. I'm really in a hole right now. All help appreciated.]

I didn’t watch last night’s GOP debate, but the reviews say Rick Perry is toast, and the baggers are standing by their man — Herman Cain.

Among voters who are likely to vote in a Republican primary Cain and Romney have been tied at the top for about a month, closely followed by “Not Sure.” The most recent polls I’ve seen don’t show any change, although they don’t cover the last two or three days. Here’s the most recent Gallup poll results, taken a couple of days ago:

Mitt Romney 22%
Herman Cain 22%
Unsure 20%
Newt Gingrich 13%
Rick Perry 11%
Ron Paul 6%
Michele Bachmann 3%
Rick Santorum 2%
Jon Huntsman 1%

Again, it’s possible there’s been some movement away from Cain over the past couple of days, but you wouldn’t know that from reading rightie bloggers or noting the audience reaction at the debates. And I’m calling Newt the “line of viability.” Candidates ahead of Newt in the polls have a shot at the nomination; below Newt, they don’t.

But then, what is the GOP establishment these days? The party is no longer being directed by its elected officials, but by a self-appointed shadow committee made up of people who are mostly interested in using the party to make themselves wealthier and more powerful. They left “movement conservatism” a long time ago; it’s all about their own wallets now. Kay wrote,

It wasn’t the Tea Party that pushed the anti-union agenda in Ohio. It was moneyed interests that are absolutely central to the national GOP, and it was state legislators who did not arrive in any “Tea Party” wave, but are (supposedly) mainstream Republicans. Governor Kasich was in the US House from 1993 to 2001. He’s about as plugged in and mainstream as a Republican can be. This was his law. Further, each and every GOP candidate for President endorsed Kasich’s law. The Tea Party actually pushed the ridiculous constitutional amendment on health care. The union-busting law wasn’t their issue.

However, the baggers can be counted on to support union-busting, because they’ve been trained to do so.

And then there are the media mouthpieces, like Bobo and Rush, who more or less say what the Powers That Be expect them to say. Rush may be a little out of control sometimes, but you know that if he ever went completely off the reservation his microphone would be unplugged.

There has been talk that the Tea Party will destroy the GOP, but I think that’s backwards. The baggers are the symptom, not the disease. The GOP has been taken over by people who are utterly disinterested in governing and only want to influence policy to serve their own interests. In a sense, the Republican Party as an actual political party is already gone.

First, I want to thank everyone for the response to the fund raiser. I only rattle the tin cup once a year, but it makes a huge difference.

I realize a lot of people are in precarious shape now, so please don’t apologize or feel bad if you can’t give a donation or can afford only a couple of bucks. Believe me, I understand.

I’m not sure if this is 100 percent of the vote, but the Ohio Secretary of State currently gives the Issue 2 count as 38.67% yes, 61.33% no, which I’d say is pretty decisive. And I see Mississippi nixed the “personhood” amendment, by a respectable margin. I’d say if it can’t pass in Mississippi, it can’t pass anywhere. Try again, fetusonistas.

Arizona’s right-wing Senate president, who calls himself the “Tea Party President,” was recalled. I’m not sure if anyone saw that coming.

Steve Kornacki writes that the GOP has a “brand problem.”

The most recent national survey from the Quinnipiac Polling Institute suggests a serious image problem for the Republican Party, with just 28 percent of voters saying they have a favorable view of the GOP and 57 percent saying they have an unfavorable one. Tuesday night offered a demonstration of why this is, with voters in several states siding against some of the most prominent faces and ideas of the Tea Party-era Republican Party.

Today’s word, boys and girls, is “overreach.”

The year started with a new Republican governor taking office and a new Republican majority in the Legislature, both results of the GOP’s 2010 midterm landslide. But once in power, the Republicans overreached, with SB 5 inciting a fierce and sustained backlash and angering many of the swing voters who were crucial to the GOP’s ’10 success. Kasich’s poll numbers crashed early in the year and have yet to recover much. A week before the election, his approval rating stood at 36 percent.

Dems have their own branding problem, of course. I’m not sure that yesterday was as much a good day for Democrats as it was a bad day for Republicans. However, I will say that the Dems aren’t quite as much the “me, too” party as it was a few years ago. At least a portion of it is less afraid to draw a strong distinction between themselves and the Right, and I hope yesterday’s elections will bolster their couragte.

Ohio’s anti-union law defeated, apparently by a huge margin, although they are still counting votes.

[Please don't forget the FUNDRAISER. I'm really in a hole right now. All help appreciated.]

Today the very serious David Brooks tells us that Mitt Romney is the Serious Candidate because he intends to get serious about entitlement reform, i.e., tossing the old folks out to fend for themselves. Even more alarming, Bobo calls Mittens’s entitlement reform proposal bold, which is rightie speak for “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

It appears the GOP establishment finally has resigned itself to going all out for Mittens to be the nominee. Jennifer Rubin also called Romney “bold” for his very serious proposals that he culled from what all the other Republicans are proposing and stuffed into voter-friendlier packaging.

For example, he basically has adopted the Paul Ryan Medicare voucher plan, but he boldly fudged his bets by promising that people could stay on the old program if they want. Oh, and he left out nagging details about how the size of the vouchers will be determined. . Yes, bold.

But Bobo is seriously shilling. A nun on her first visit to the Sistine Chapel would be challenged to match Bobo for awed reverence.

The word “serious,” when coming from a Republican, is never good. “Serious” in foreign policy is a willingness to nuke any nation that doesn’t invite us to its birthday parties, for example. “Serious” domestic policy means allowing Exxon to design our energy programs. Beware.

As an antidote, I give you Charles Pierce:

On Friday, Mitt Romney, the Republican frontrunner and a man who could be mugged for his wallet through the mail, and a man of such iron will that he wrote a book called No Apologies in which he changed positions on several issues between the hardcover and paperback editions, went before the Koch Brothers hobby-horse Americans for Prosperity banquet and bravely promised to do everything he could not to do anything he bravely promised to do when he was running in any of the several other political campaigns that have kept him from ever being “a professional politician.” Specifically, he signed on to Paul Ryan’s toss-Grampa-to-the-jackals voucher approach to Medicare. Ryan was thrilled to death. Not his death, of course, but the death of a lot of old people who’ll be thrown onto the market of the single most disgusting industry in America that doesn’t involve deepwater drilling.

“Younger Americans today, when they turn 65, should have a choice between traditional Medicare and other private health care plans that provide at least the same level of benefits. Competition will lower costs and increase the quality of health care,”

Yes, because, in all aspects of our economy, but especially in the health-insurance game, corporate power slavers for the thrill of real competition, because American corporations want a free market where they might have to lower costs and increase the quality of their product, despite the fact that Wall Street will scream bloody fking murder when they do. That’s why we have 300 domestic airlines in the United States now as a result of deregulation.

Thank you, Mitt Romney, GOP frontrunner.