JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Damn it! I thought two or three times in recent weeks about writing a post predicting that the Supreme Court would vote 6-3 in favor of upholding Romneycare…uh, I mean the Affordable Care Act.

So, you’ll just have to trust that I’m still able to tell which way the wind is blowing without tossing blades of grass in the air.

I felt sure that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy would vote with justices Sotamayor, Kagan, Ginsburg and Breyer mainly because they have demonstrated that they are not political hacks. The same cannot be said of Scalia/Thomas (a twofer) and Alioto. (To this day, I blame former U.S. Sen. Jack Danforth — otherwise a pretty good man — for getting empty-headed Thomas on the bench. Thomas worked for Danforth after graduating from law school.)

But anyway, the law — along with affordable health insurance for millions of Americans — is saved because the Big Six saw the light.

By early afternoon, The New York Times had posted an editorial, along with at least two stories. The editorial drew several hundred comments, and I’d like to share a few with you. (If you don’t read the comments on big NYT stories, I suggest you give it a try. You get a good sampling of what a wide array of people are thinking, as well as some funny and eloquent writing.)

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Sam McFarland, Bowling Green, KY —

Now if we can just resurrect and pass the public option! We could then have a national health insurance program that could serve all Americans, and insurance companies would no longer be the big winners.

BlueNC, Chapel Hill — 

You just have to wonder about (and I’m not going to say all) Republicans…Think about all of their wasted time, energy and money to undo this societal accomplishment. Had they spent these same amount of resources to improve the ACA, we would be much better off as country.

Pragmatist, Austin —

People may disagree with the ACA proposition, but the American people are sick and tired of a small, well-financed, minority monopolizing our legislative agenda. Get on with things that need to be done, including making the reasonable modifications to ACA that need to be made.

BloodyColonial, Santa Cruz — 

Antonin Scalia needs to retire from the bench. He’s an arrogant jerk and a clown and he doesn’t have the temperament for the office. Disagree with the majority opinion if you will, but carry yourself with the dignity Americans expect from a Supreme Court justice…Can’t FOX lure him away? By nature he is an angry right-wing talk show host, not a Justice.

Dawit Cherie, Saint Paul —

God bless Chief Justice John Roberts. He acts again with such decency to solidify our faith in the American justice system.

Steve S, Minnesota —

The Affordable Care Act is not perfect. I have no respect for the Republican party because instead of offering ways to legitimately make it better, they just want to completely destroy it. Since the party would probably approve of corporal punishment, they should be spanked and sent to a corner until they learn to play respectfully with other’s building blocks.

Empirical Conservatism (no city or state) —

Justice Scalia is an opera lover. Surely he knows when the fat lady has sung.

CQ, Maine — 

I don’t understand why the House of Representatives doesn’t just vote to repeal the law. What? They did? How many times? Really? Oh. OK. Sorry.

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NOTE:

I learned about the Supreme Court’s decision by checking The Star’s website, as I do frequently each day. Despite it being a landmark decision, however, the Obamacare story didn’t merit top-of-the-page treatment. No, that honor went to a story about a polar bear named Nikita at the Kansas City Zoo. In addition, the McClatchy story that The Star ran about the court decision didn’t even have a breakdown on how the justices voted.

Later, the lead story was about the American Royal parade moving out of downtown.

The Star is going through a redesign in which one of the goals is to wean readers from the print product and to the website…If this is the direction we’re headed, we’re soon going to have a newspaper website that is more appropriate for “boondockia” than a major American city. (Credit for that inimitable term goes to reader and commenter John Altevogt.)