Just remembered where I saw it. It was a commenter at Ann Althouse called Fen.

It’s Fen’s Law.
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I had never heard of it, and Google didn’t ever find the original comment or post, but I did find several references over the years. Thanks for something new to add to my “quotes” file.
“The Left doesn’t really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about.”

If the penalty is zero that effectively removes it de facto. But every source I’ve looked at says it was repealed.

My understanding is that the individual mandate and penalty is intact and was not repealed. The only thing that was repealed was the dollar figure of the penalty. It is now zero. And I think I read that the subsequent tax returns will still have a line item for the zero dollar penalty. The most anti-constitutional, freedom robbing provision in U.S. history is still there waiting for a power change in D.C. Thank you Chief Justice Roberts.

The reason for this, of course, is reconciliation. Reconciliation allows for fiscal number changes, but not structural changes to current law. Or is that a ruse? If they already voted for a resolution in favor of allowing a full repeal of Obamacare under reconciliation, why not just invoke it and truly repeal the mandate/penalty? Then again, it was a TAX bill. Sigh. Either too complex or too duplicitous.

I completely agree with Gregory B. Legislators routinely vote the opposite of the way they would have, if they had no clue of the outcome. It’s all about posturing. And trotting out that pig of cloture and filibustering was getting extremely old. Better put some lip stick on it.

You sound like a good person and a wonderful neighbor. You probably want to be left alone to do your thing, take care of your loved ones, watch your kids succeed. You don’t want to see anyone get hurt or killed.

Live and let live.

I get that.

But the people President Trump fights, they don’t want to live and let live. The Progressive Left of our country, and the Pan-national Progressives of the U.N., don’t want to live and let live. Kim Jong Un doesn’t want to live and let live.

You are either with them or against them. You either drink the grape Flavor-aid and pour the syringe of poisoned drink down your children’s’ throats or the Fellow Travelers will shoot you. And that’s for the lucky ones.

The Progressive Left of 21st Century American culture and politics (almost inseparable) are not the Democrats and Liberals of even 20 years ago. They definitely aren’t like our host Neo before her political change.

They are not decent people, nor even well-meaning bad people: they are would be mass murderers. The United States of America has come to a crossroads; ‘Antifa’ Blackshirts and the blue haired throngs of nattering Third Wave feminists, LGBTQWTF shock troops and all their collaborating support staff would ship you off on a one-way boxcar ride to a warm Zyklon-B shower if they thought for a moment they could get away with it.

And those are just some of your countrymen. Some foreigners, like Kim Jong Un, would settle for incineration.

Yet, you are appalled by Trumps tweets, even as he uses the Press and Pundits’ mass freak-outs and hand-wringing and the “I-Just-Can’t-Even-ing” to wonderful, distracting effect.

While the Oh-So-Civilized purveyors of your Doom get the vapors over the latest Tweet Barrage, President Trump and his people are building a pile of skulls (A figure of speech, I swear…)of Trump’s enemies and, likely, your enemies.

Ann, learn to see the big picture; anything that drives the Progressive Left to distraction this consistently and effectively is cover. And Trump, be he misunderstood genius or just a cunning survivor (I believe the latter, myself) is fighting for the country we love more than the last 4 presidents ever did.

I was a Ted Cruz man, right up until election day, when I realized it was Trump or Hillary; and that was really no choice at all. Since then, he’s made me rethink everything.

I don’t believe he’s good man. But the time when good men could fix our problems in a civil, classy fashion, well, those days are long gone, if they were ever really here to begin with. Trump’s not a good man, but he’s the man we need right now. He’s a selfish, self-interested man of ruthless cunning, fighting for his and our country.

“Obviously if you think the whole thing’s a charade and everyone’s in on it, nothing they could do (short of torturing John McCain till he votes “yes”) could convince you.”

My prior comment, “That’s not to say there isn’t a spectrum of opinion in the GOP.” was meant to indicate that I do not “think the whole thing’s a charade and everyone’s in on it”. Please forgive my lack of clarity.

“But I think your argument doesn’t make sense, because if they hadn’t done the reconciliation thing they could have just said sorry, we can’t repeal Obamacare because we don’t have the votes to invoke cloture and the Democrats stopped us, and next election you just have to elect more Republicans so we’ll finally have a big enough majority for cloture and repeal.”

Certainly they could have done that and had they, they had to know they would have faced the question as to why they had not employed the reconciliation tactic, just as the democrats had previously done.

McConnell had previously tried staying on ‘the high road’ and the democrats made a fool of him. Many on the right, roundly criticized him for it once the democrats went to the nuclear option.

To imagine that if Republicans now refrained from pushing through legislation, that when possible, the democrats would not return to the nuclear option is a logically indefensible assertion.

So plausible deniability required doing just enough that they can’t be seen as not supporting favored reforms on the right.

Knowing that they can count on Republican senators Susan Collins, John McCain, and Lisa Murkowski to vote against anything democrats are really opposed to allows RINOs to vote for legislation they actually oppose. It’s politics ‘201’.

I am far more appalled by the fact that we have seen this (NK nukes) coming for nearly TWENTY-FIVE YEARS and let it happen. People were talking about this early in the *Clinton* administration. This wasn’t a bolt out of the blue like 9/11.
That is three administrations, both parties, with all the wise, knowledgeable, refined, dignified foreign policy experts who should have stopped this long ago and they failed BIG-TIME.

The most fundamental justification for the existence of *any* government is to protect its citizens from external attack. The wise guys, I mean wise men did not do their job and that is why we got Trump.

And here is another thing that dovetails with one of Trump’s other issues. A lot of people say that the road to stopping NK goes through China. That makes a lot of sense, right? Is it possible that the reason the previous administrations did not take this tack is that they didn’t want to upset the trade applecart with China? Just a thought.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/01/03/abandoning-the-nevertrump-ship/

“Although a hardened group of radical NeverTrumpers remains, most former fellow-travelers have moderated their stances and are at least willing to consider Trump on his merits. From R.R. Reno to Mollie Hemingway, former or more moderate critics of Trump are now undertaking important work in helping to smash the ruling class oligarchy.

As Trump’s successes continue to pile up in the New Year, the remaining few passengers on the sinking NeverTrump ship should ask themselves an important question: Does their hatred of one man matter more than the good of their country?”

Of course, one might argue that they will just end up substituting a different ruling class oligarchy for the current one (and even then it will include some of the same people wearing different masks), but it won’t be the Clinton Oligarchy, and the maskers may have to pretend at some points that they aren’t a leftist oligarchy either.

Better half a loaf than none at all.

Obviously if you think the whole thing’s a charade and everyone’s in on it, nothing they could do (short of torturing John McCain till he votes “yes”) could convince you. But I think your argument doesn’t make sense, because if they hadn’t done the reconciliation thing they could have just said sorry, we can’t repeal Obamacare because we don’t have the votes to invoke cloture and the Democrats stopped us, and next election you just have to elect more Republicans so we’ll finally have a big enough majority for cloture and repeal.

They had no need to go for reconciliation if their aim was to gain plausible deniability; they had plausible deniability without it.