Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command — 1 Chronicles 12:32
Obama’s attack against the Supreme Court of the United States follows his attack against the United States Congress. And when a president attacks and demonizes the two separate branches that are co-equal with him according to the United States Constitution, that president is a fascist.
Now we’re seeing Obama – the “constitutional scholar – on the verge of getting slapped hard in the face yet again because of his inability to understand that HE IS NOT A DICTATOR.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court justices strongly suggested Wednesday that they are ready to allow Arizona to enforce part of a controversial state law requiring police officers to check the immigration status of people they think are in the country illegally.
Liberal and conservative justices reacted skeptically to the Obama administration’s argument that the state exceeded its authority when it made the records check, and another provision allowing suspected illegal immigrants to be arrested without a warrant, part of the Arizona law aimed at driving illegal immigrants elsewhere.
“You can see it’s not selling very well,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Obama administration Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.
It was unclear what the court would do with other aspects of the law that have been put on hold by lower federal courts. The other blocked provisions make it a state crime for immigrants not to have immigration registration papers and for illegal immigrants to seek work or hold a job.
Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law two years ago, was on hand for the final argument of the court’s term.
The latest high court clash between the administration and states turns on the extent of states’ role in immigration policy, which is essentially under the federal government’s control.
Verrilli tried to persuade the justices that they should view the law in its entirety and inconsistent with federal immigration policy. He said the records check would allow the state to “engage effectively in mass incarceration” of undocumented immigrants.
But Chief Justice John Roberts was among those on the court who took issue with Verrilli’s characterization of the check of immigration status, saying the state merely wants to notify federal authorities it has someone in custody who may be in the U.S. illegally. “It seems to me that the federal government just doesn’t want to know who’s here illegally and who’s not,” Roberts said.
Chief Justice John Roberts interrupted Verilli to say, “It is not an effort to preempt federal law, it is an effort to enforce the law.” Roberts added that even if Arizona detains an undocumented immigrant “It’s still [the federal government’s] decision” who to deport.
Not surprisingly, Justice Scalia sided almost entirely with Arizona and ventured to an extreme where not even the state of Arizona seemed uninterested in spending much time. Scalia argued in court that the states not only have the right to enforce federal immigration law but also have the right to wholly close their borders to undocumented immigrants.
Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was the most sympathetic to the government’s claims, seemed unconvinced. “I’m terribly confused by your answer,” she said, as Verrilli attempted to explain why it’s okay for states and the federal government to cooperate when the federal government takes the initiative but not when a state moves to mandate their cops to do so.
“Putting aside the argument that systemic cooperation is wrong,” adding, “you can see it’s not selling well,” Sotomayor asked Verilli to explain “what’s left?”
Verrilli did not have a great deal to offer.
Obama has stuck his thumb in the eyes of the United States Congress. He has stuck his thumb in the eyes of the Supreme Court. He has stuck his thumb in the eyes of the states. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t give one flying damn about the Constitution.
I’ve written about the Arizona law a number of times before (from newest to oldest):
According to the American Constitution, power is shared by three separate branches of government that have different functions and were by design intended to frustrate one another’s ambitions.
But we now have a president who refuses to accept the constitutional mandate of the other two branches; Obama wants to be America’s first “Dear Leader.”
Consider that recently Barack Obama was demonizing Congress and literally saying, “I’ll impose my will on America without you.”
The following is not from some “right-wing ‘pseudo’ news source”; it is from the reliably leftist Atlantic:
Obama Rolls Out a Jobs Plan That Doesn’t Need Congress
By Fawn Johnson
Sep 1 2011, 8:56 AM ET306 The president has asked federal agencies to find solutions on their own. His message to lawmakers: We can do this without you.
President Obama is either fed up with Congress or he’s testing his own administration’s mettle. Or both.
On Wednesday, Obama took a now-familiar path in adopting a program–this time a jobs and infrastructure effort–that can happen entirely within his domain. Obama directed several federal agencies to identify “high-impact, job-creating infrastructure projects” that can be expedited now, without congressional approval.
One week before he will make a major address to Congress on jobs, Obama is making sure they know he plans to move forward without them. The president has also directed the Education Department to come up with a “Plan B” updating the 2001 No Child Left Behind law in the absence of congressional action. The message to Congress is clear: Do your work or we’ll do it for you.
On all sorts of fronts, Obama has blatantly ignored the Constitution as he has made one power grab after another. The Foundry provides one example:
“Congress hasn’t been able to do it, so I will.” With this bold statement, President Obama announced last Friday that he would unilaterally replace the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) with conditions-based waivers. Obama’s waiver strategy is an alarming misuse of executive power that undermines the separation of powers.
In and of itself, the use of waivers is not unconstitutional. Congress has the authority to create laws with provisions that allow the President to grant exceptions in certain circumstances. NCLB does, for instance, authorize the Secretary of Education to grant waivers to applicants that meet certain criteria. However, waivers are not written as blank checks of authority for the President to bypass Congress and enact new policy.
In this case, the President is using waivers to rewrite the law. The Obama waivers go far beyond the measures allowed by NCLB. To receive a waiver, states must agree to implement a new set of goals and programs determined not by Congress, but by the White House.
For months, President Obama and Congressional Republicans have disagreed on how to reform NCLB. There are major problems with the law’s intrusive regulations. But the Obama administration decided that the “do-nothing Congress” could not be trusted to act and so the President is acting without them.
But co-opting the waiver power to craft a new laws designed in and implemented by the White House is a departure from the constitutional separation of powers.
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to craft the nation’s laws and to reform those laws when they do not work as planned. The executive is authorized to carry out the laws passed by Congress. But this can be quite bothersome for a President if Congress doesn’t see things his way.
HONOLULU — President Obama is heading into his re-election campaign with plans to step up his offensive against an unpopular Congress, concluding that he cannot pass any major legislation in 2012 because of Republican hostility toward his agenda.
[...]
However the White House chooses to frame Mr. Obama’s strategy, it amounts to a wholesale makeover of the young senator who won the presidency in 2008 by promising to change the culture of Washington, rise above the partisan fray and seek compromises.
After three years in office, Mr. Obama is gambling on a go-it-alone approach. In the coming weeks, he will further showcase measures he is taking on his own to revive the economy, Mr. Earnest said, declining to give details.
President Barack Obama is entering his fourth year in office having calculated that he no longer needs Congress to promote his agenda and may even benefit in his re-election campaign if lawmakers take little action in 2012.
Devoid of any major policy pushes, much of the year will instead be focused on the biggest goal of all: winning a second term.
That’s one branch of Congress the President of the United States no longer needs and feels free to demonize, ignore and usurp whenever it benefits him politically.
Here’s the other: The Supreme Court of the United States.
You should be familiar with Obama’s attitude toward the SCOTUS because it is still so fresh in the news. But here are a few of my articles on the subject:
Power: Given the president’s end-runs around Congress, his shredding of the Constitution and his assault on the authority of the courts, a second term free of electoral restraints may be a frightening prospect.
Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News commentator, raised the question on Neil Cavuto’s “Your World” show Wednesday. And while it seems fanciful in light of the safeguards built into our democracy and its institutions, it recognizes the threat posed by the president’s policies and actions if left unchecked.
“I think the president is dangerously close to totalitarianism,” Napolitano opined. “A few months ago he was saying, ‘The Congress doesn’t count, the Congress doesn’t mean anything, I am going to rule by decree and by administrative regulation.’
“Now he’s basically saying the Supreme Court doesn’t count. It doesn’t matter what they think. They can’t review our legislation. That would leave just him as the only branch of government standing.”
Some would consider this borderline hyperbole. But this is, after all, a president who has said he can’t wait for Congress to act and will govern by executive order and regulations if necessary. He has questioned the Supreme Court’s “unprecedented” review of ObamaCare.
As the Department of Justice turned in its homework assignment on the judicial review of the constitutionality of laws, it was a reminder that this is an administration that’s already been found in contempt of court by a federal judge.
In February of last year, Louisiana Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman found that the Obama Interior Department was in contempt of his ruling that the offshore oil drilling moratorium, imposed by the administration in 2010, was unconstitutional. After Feldman struck down the initial drilling ban, the Interior Department simply established a second ban that was virtually identical.
Judge Feldman was not amused. “Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,” Feldman said in his ruling. “Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second moratorium … provides this court with clear and convincing evidence of its contempt.”
As for Congress, we see the same dismissive tone. “Whenever Congress refuses to act, Joe and I, we’re going to act,” Obama said in February at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, with Vice President Joe Biden off to the side. “In the months to come, wherever we have an opportunity, we’re going to take steps on our own to keep this economy moving.”
When cap-and-trade failed to make it through Congress — a Congress that had specifically denied the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate so-called greenhouse gases via the Clean Air Act — the Obama administration, with the support of the usual suspects in the media, went ahead, unleashing the EPA to make war on coal and other fossil fuels.
In April 2009, Time Magazine ran a piece titled, “EPA’S CO2 Finding: Putting a Gun to Congress’ Head.” The New York Times editorialized that if Congress fails to ram through cap-and-trade legislation, the EPA should ram it down our throats. And that’s what the administration has been doing.
The whole thrust has been the acquisition of power by the federal government centered on the White House. That is the theme of ObamaCare, which is not about health care but about making people as dependent on government benevolence, if we can use that word, as possible.
Those who stand in the way, whether it be the Supreme Court, Congress or institutions such as the Catholic Church, are to be either ignored when possible, or intimidated and bullied into silence and acquiescence in the proud tradition of President Obama’s mentor, Saul Alinsky.
What is at stake here is freedom and whether we shall be governed by a document that begins with “we the people” or whether we shall be ruled, in totalitarian fashion, by a bill that says “the secretary shall determine” what our rights and freedoms are.
The Constitution and the American way of life is teetering on the edge of a cliff. And Barack Hussein is doing everything he can to push it over and finish the job of “fundamentally transforming America.”
Consider just how godawful Obama’s ObamaCare abuse of power truly is:
Senate Republican staffers continue to look though the 2010 Obamacare law to see what’s in it, and their latest discovery is a massive $17 trillion funding gap.
“The more we learn about the bill, the more we learn it is even more unaffordable than was suspected,” said Ala. Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Republican’s budget chief in the Senate.
“The bill has to be removed from the books because we don’t have the money,” he said.
The hidden shortfall between new Obamacare spending and new Obamacare taxes was revealed just after Supreme Court judges grilled the law’s supporters about its compliance with the constitution’s limits on government activity. If the judges don’t strike down the law, Obamacare will force taxpayers find another $17 trillion to pay for Obamacare’s spending.
The $17 trillion in extra promises was revealed by an analysis of the law’s long-term requirements. The additional obligations, when combined with existing Medicare and Medicaid funding shortfalls, leaves taxpayers on the hook for an extra $82 trillion over the next 75 years.
The federal government already owes $15 trillion in debt, including $5 trillion in funds borrowed during Obama’s term.
That $82 billion in unfunded future expenses is more more than five years of wealth generated by the United States, which now produces just over $15 trillion of value per year.
The $82 trillion funding gap is equal to 28 years of the the current federal budget, which was $3.36 trillion for 2011.
The new $17 trillion funding gap is five times the current federal budget.
Currently, the Social Security system is $7 trillion in debt over the next 65 years. Medicare will eat up $38 trillion in future taxes, and Medicaid will consume another $2o trillion of the taxpayer’s wealth, according to estimates prepared by the actuarial office at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The short-term cost of the Obamacare law is $2.6 trillion, almost triple the $900 billion cost promised by Obama and his Democratic allies, said Sessions.
The extra $17 billion gap was discovered by applying standard CMMS estimates and models to the law’s spending obligations, Sessions said.
For example, Session’s examination of Obamacare’s “premium support” program shows a funding gap $12 billion wider that predicted.
The same review also showed the Obamacare law added another $5 trillion in unfunded obligations for the Medicaid program.
“President Obama told the American people that his health law would cost $900 billion over ten years and that it would not add ‘one dime’ to the debt… this health law adds an entirely new obligation—one we cannot pay for—and puts the entire financing of the United States government in jeopardy,” Sessions said in a floor speech.
“We don’t have the money… We have to reduce the [obligations] that we have.”
This is where the crowd is required to face the White House and then repeatedly genuflect while chanting, “We’re not worthy of you, Obama. We are not worthy!”
White House press secretary Jay Carney tells the press corps that President Obama’s attack on the Supreme Court was misunderstood because he was speaking in “shorthand” since he is a former professor of law.
Henry: The president is a former constitutional law professor. One of his professors is Laurence Tribe. He now says, in his words, the president “obviously misspoke earlier this week”, quote “he didn’t say what he meant and having said that in order to avoid misleading anyone, he had to clarify it.” I thought yesterday you were saying repeatedly that he did not misspeak. What do you make of the president’s former law professor saying he did?
Carney: The premise of your question suggests that the president of the United States in the comments he made Monday, did not believe in the constitutionality of legislation, which is a preposterous premise and I know you don’t believe that.
Henry: Except this is from Laurence Tribe, who knows a lot more than you and I about constitutional law.
Carney: What I acknowledged yesterday is that speaking on Monday the president was not clearly understood by some people because he is a law professor, he spoke in shorthand.
As a “genius” law professor, Obama apparently knows that there is no statute of limitation on blaming Bush for all the failures Obama should have accepted responsibility for oh, about 1,172 days ago when he first put his feet up on the desk in the Oval Office. But other than that, he doesn’t know squat.
First of all, I have previously written – at length – that Barack Obama is a fascist. I hope more people will believe me now.
In that article, I begin by correcting the historical fabrication that “fascism” was somehow “right-wing.” It was most certainly NOT. Hitler and his Nazism was on the far right of the radical far LEFT. Fascism was a rival brand of socialism along with communism; and the war between the fascist Nazis and the communist Marxists was akin to a war between Pepsi and Coke or between Bratz dolls and Barbie dolls.
Then I start ticking off examples of fascist things Obama has pulled off. And of course I just go on and on because there’s just so much. Obama is a spurting firehose of fascism.
When Obama demonized the Supreme Court and the separation of powers Monday, he was merely continuing to reveal his contempt at the Constitution and the founding fathers who wrote it, such as when he said:
“I think that we can say that the Constitution reflected the enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day and that the framers had that same blind spot.”
And so it’s really no surprise that Obama would say to the Supreme Court the moment it revealed it might not support his fascist messiahship, “OUT, damn spot!”
It’s just so much easier for an Obama to “fundamentally transform America” when Hitler is the government and the government is Hitler, isn’t it?
President Barack Obama’s attack on the Supreme Court appeared to backfire Tuesday, when the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order giving the Justice Department until noon Thursday to state whether the administration truly believes courts lack the authority to strike down mandates that they determine are unconstitutional.
On Monday, Obama said that striking down his signature healthcare legislation would be an “unprecedented, extraordinary step” and would demonstrate a lack of “judicial restraint” by the Supreme Court.
He also pointed out that the nine Supreme Court justices are unelected, suggesting that it would therefore be undemocratic for them to overturn Obamacare, which narrowly eked through Congress by a seven vote margin in the House of Representatives.
“This is liberals in shock over watching their side being demolished in oral arguments,” Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer said Tuesday, pointing out the courts have had the authority to strike down unconstitutional provisions for over 200 years. “And [they are] trying to bully the Supreme Court into ending up on their side in a case which they clearly had lost intellectually and logically.”
The order from the 5th Circuit for the Justice Department to clarify its position on judicial authority came during a separate challenge to Obamacare brought by physician-owned hospitals.
As a Justice Department lawyer began arguing the government’s case, Appeals Judge Jerry Smith interrupted the presentation to ask if the 5th Circuit Court had the legal authority to strike down a law it finds to be unconstitutional. CBS News reports that when the government lawyer answered affirmatively, the judge stated that it was not clear to “many of us” that the president agrees.
The three-judge panel then gave the Justice Department until noon Thursday to provide a three-page letter clarifying whether it believes courts have the authority to pass judgment on the constitutionality of laws.
“Clearly, Jerry Smith was upset by the president’s remarks and he has every right to demand clarification,” judicial expert Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice told Newsmax. “Obviously, he’s making a point as well as requesting clarification.
“But the president left himself open to that,” Levey added. “Of course the president doesn’t really believe the Supreme Court can’t strike down unconstitutional laws. But if the president’s going to say things like that to demagogue, then he is responsible for them.”
Many observers saw the president’s remarks as a clumsy attempt to “work the refs” and influence the court’s decision on his healthcare reforms. His challenge to the independent judiciary branch of government provoked widespread criticism from both sides of the aisle Tuesday.
“For the president to imply that the only explanation for a constitutional conclusion contrary to his own would be out-of-control conservative justices does the court a disservice,” wrote Washington Post correspondent Ruth Marcus, who has been a staunch defender of the president’s policies.
“Mr. Obama’s remarks suggest he is joining others on the left in warning the justices that they will pay a political price if they dare to overturn even part of the law,” it stated. “As he runs for re-election, Mr. Obama’s inner community organizer seems to be winning out over the law professor.”
By upping the ante, the 5th Circuit focuses more attention on a misstep that the administration would prefer go unnoticed. The president came under attack from the left and right Tuesday over what looked like a blatant attempt to intimidate the court and influence its verdict. He quickly backed off from his challenge to the judiciary, however.
“The point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution, and all of us have to respect it,” he said. “But it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to a duly elected legislature.”
Obama went on to assert that overturning congressional legislation was so extraordinary that the burden of proof would be on those who felt it could be unconstitutional.
That view, however, appeared to be at odds with the position of the key swing vote in the case, however: Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“I understand that we must presume laws are constitutional,” Justice Kennedy said to U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli on the second day of oral arguments last week. “But, even so, when you are changing the relation of the individual to the government in this, what we can stipulate is, I think a unique way, do you not have a heavy burden of justification to show authorization under the Constitution?”
[For the record, I added the link to the WSJ article.]
(CBS News) In the escalating battle between the administration and the judiciary, a federal appeals court apparently is calling the president’s bluff — ordering the Justice Department to answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom.
The order, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, appears to be in direct response to the president’scomments yesterday about the Supreme Court’s review of the health care law. Mr. Obama all but threw down the gauntlet with the justices, saying he was “confident” the Court would not “take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”
Overturning a law of course would not be unprecedented – since the Supreme Court since 1803 has asserted the power to strike down laws it interprets as unconstitutional. The three-judge appellate court appears to be asking the administration to admit that basic premise — despite the president’s remarks that implied the contrary. The panel ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page, single-spaced letter by noon Thursday addressing whether the Executive Branch believes courts have such power, the lawyer said.
As the CBS piece points out, the heart of Obama’s “case” is simply purely dishonest – and Obama has the law degree to document that he’s a lying fool rather than just an ordinary fool.
In 2009, President Obama was asked whether the individual mandate in his healthcare plan was really just a tax in disguise. “I absolutely reject that notion,” he responded.
But if the president had been brave enough back then to call a tax a tax, his healthcare law might not be in such a mess today.
At the Supreme Court this week, both sides basically agreed that the Constitution allows the federal government to enact a national health insurance plan — even a government-run single-payer plan. (That, after all, is pretty much what Medicare is.) And both sides agreed that the Constitution allows the government to levy taxes to help pay for that health insurance. (We all pay a Medicare tax.)
But that’s not how Obama and the Democrats wrote their healthcare law. Instead, to avoid the stigma of the word “tax,” they included a requirement that everyone obtain health insurance or pay a penalty.
It turns out that was a big mistake. As we now know, there’s one thing Americans hate even more than taxes, and that’s being ordered around by their government.
And then, the following day, when Obama allegedly tried to “walk back” his remark, he said more things that were untrue. He tried to say that there hadn’t been a law struck down on economic issues since the New Deal days; that was a lie and Obama has the law credentials to know it is a lie: In 1999, in States v. Morrison and in 1995, in United States v. Lopez, the Supreme Court struck down laws that had been passed by Congress using an unconstitutionally-overly-broad usage of commerce clause as justification. It hasn’t been that long since the Court exercised its Marbury powers which it has affirmed since 1803, and it isn’t that unusual.
And Justice Scalia pointed out that ObamaCare forced people to buy a product simply so the government could call it “commerce” and regulate it. Justice Scalia said to the Obama lawyer’s examples, THOSE cases dealt with commerce; THIS case deals with people who HAVEN’T participated in commerce – people without insurance. You’re going to force millions of Americans to buy something they haven’t bought just so you can then turn around and regulate them. And if they don’t you’re going to hit them with a penalty you call a tax but only when it’s convenient to you to call it whatever you’re calling it at any given time.
My challenge for those who want to minimize Obama’s incredible words on Monday which followed his public attack on the Supreme Court at a State of the Union address is to find George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan doing anything like that and disrespecting the Supreme Court – a coequal branch of government – that way in such a public forum.
William F. Buckley famously provided an example of “relativism” as:
“the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around” — William F. Buckley, Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography
[For the record, it was Greg Gutfeld on the April 3rd edition of "The Five" on the Fox News Channel, who adapted that particular Buckley analogy to ObamaCare and "judicial activism."].
When Obama and other liberals try to frame a Supreme Court decision – particularly when that decision has not even been rendered and the grounds of that decision have not even been provided – as “judicial activism,” it is beyond dishonest.
I would lament a ruling striking down the individual mandate, but I would not denounce it as conservative justices run amok. Listening to the arguments and reading the transcript, the justices struck me as a group wrestling with a legitimate, even difficult, constitutional question. For the president to imply that the only explanation for a constitutional conclusion contrary to his own would be out-of-control conservative justices does the court a disservice.
Again, the SCOTUS not only hasn’t issued its ruling yet, but they most certainly haven’t provided their grounds for their ruling!!! For Obama to dictate to the Supreme Court that “if you rule against me, you are an unelected and therefore illegitimate and discredited body, but if you rule for me, then you can go back to being legitimate again,” does profound and disturbing injury to our constitutional republic founded upon the separation of powers. And Barack Obama ought to live in infamy for that act of treason against the Constitution of the United States of America that he falsely swore to uphold and defend.
What is “judicial activism,” stripped of the delusional relativistic spin that Democrats want to apply to pervert something that has so often outraged conservatives??? The answer is that it is inventing concepts not found in the Constitution whatsoever – such as “penumbras and emanations” used to justify Roe v. Wade. EVEN RUTH BADER GINSBURG HAS SAID THAT ROE V. WADE WAS TERRIBLE LEGAL REASONING!!! And the spirit of judicial activism can be summed up in famous liberal justice Thurgood Marshall, who expressed the essence of his judicial philosophy as follows:
“You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”
Chief Justice John Roberts had an interesting point to make about his judicial philosophy when he was going through the nomination process:
John Roberts: “I had someone ask me in this process — I don’t remember who it was, but somebody asked me, you know, ‘Are you going to be on the side of the little guy?’ And you obviously want to give an immediate answer, but as you reflect on it, if the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy is going to win in court before me. But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then, the big guy is going to win, because my obligation is to the Constitution. That’s the oath.”
Contrast that with Thurgood Marshall’s “I impose my own will on the law and force the Constitution to say whatever I happen to want it to say at any given moment” view.
Some articles I’ve written hit at some of the VERY legitimate constitutional questions raised by Supreme Court Justices:
Everything – and I mean EVERYTHING - that Obama has said about ObamaCare and the Supreme Court has been a demonstrable lie. Founding Idealshas gone after some of what Obama has said:
Dishonest Statement:
“Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,”
The Truth:
The law passed by a very narrow majority (220-215 in the house with 39 Democrats voting against it). That certainly wasn’t a strong majority. The program was so divisive that massive protests were held in opposition to the bill and its passing energized the nascent Tea Party. Even today a majority of Americans oppose Obamacare.
[Further, it passed in the Senate by such a tiny necessary majority that the Scott Brown election - with Scott Brown running on the promise that he would be the "41st vote" to stop ObamaCare - threw a huge monkey wrench into the Democrat campaign to ram it through and necessitated all kinds of procedural gimmicks such as "to deem it passed."]
Dishonest Statement:
“With respect to health care, I’m actually — continue to be confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law. And the reason is because, in accordance with precedent out there, it’s constitutional.”
The Truth:
There is no precedent where the Federal government has forced people to purchase a good or service from a private company.
Mere Hyperbole:
“That doesn’t even speak to the 30 million people who stand to gain coverage once it’s fully implemented in 2014.”
A more honest answer:
The CBO’s estimate is that 20 million people that will lose coverage because the perverse economic incentives encourage employers to drop coverage for their employees. No one knows what the net gain will be. (Based on other Obama success stories like Cash for clunkers, Solyndra, etc – I predict that the number of net newly covered individuals will be much less than 20 million)
On April 3rd, in a question and answer, Obama said:
OBAMA: Um, we have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on a[n] economic issue like health care that I think most people would clearly consider commerce. A law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner, right? So we’re goin’ back to the thirties, pre-New Deal.
Again, that is simply FALSE. In FACT the Supreme Court has struck down at least TWO laws that had been passed on the basis of the same “commerce clause” that was used as the grounds for ObamaCare. In 1999, in States vs. Morrison and in 1995, in United States vs. Lopez, a broad interpretation of the commerce clause and expansive federal powers under the guise of regulation ”economic issues” were struck down by the Supreme Court. Which is to say that Barack Obama not only as a former lawyer, but as a “constitutional scholar,” is openly lying to the American people.
The Supreme Court has struck down on average provisions of two laws every single year. What Obama said is beyond ridiculous.
In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court quite literally struck down the laws in all fifty states and wrote the new law by itself. And for the same liberals who celebrate that law to demonize a Supreme Court for striking down a law that clearly extends the commerce clause beyond ANYTHING that the founding fathers envisioned is itself demonic.
during the Q&A, the moderator is the chairman of Associated Press, Dean Singleton, who said, “Mr. President, you said yesterday it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress. Yet that’s exactly what the court’s done during its entire existence.”
Which gets us back to the fact that overturning ObamaCare would hardly qualify as “judicial activism.” It is simply the Supreme Court’s job to consider a law brought before them and compare it to the Constitution to see if said law is supported by the U.S. Constitution.
Barack Obama is a liar without shame, without honor, without integrity. That is a fact.
Justice Antonin Scalia said something interesting in a debate with ACLU president Nadine Strossen about the idea that liberal “judicial activism” would one day come back to haunt liberals:
Scalia: Someday, Nadine, you’re going to get a very conservative Supreme Court –
26:57 Strossen: — I think that day has come! (laughter) –
26:58 Scalia: And you’re going to regret what you’ve done.
I’m to the point where I actually hope that right-wing justices rise up and do unto the left as the left has done unto us for the last eighty years. So here’s to hoping for some right-wing judicial activism to re-balance the scales that have tipped so far away from our Constitution that it’s not even funny. We’re far past the point of being able to negotiate with liberals to fix the problems that will necessarily implode us and leave us a bankrupt banana republic.
If the Supreme Court votes against ObamaCare, it is an illegitimate body of unelected conservative hacks; but if the same Supreme Court supports ObamaCare, then it is forever validated and the ruling should be set in stone.
If the American people weren’t degenerating into a nation of dumbasses, then they would frankly rise up and demand that Barack Obama be impeached and removed from office for his fascist attempt to usurp the legitimacy of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
Ostensibly the Supreme Court is supposed to be above and beyond the realm of politics. As we know, that clearly isn’t true given the fact that political presidents get to nominate judicial appointees and a political Senate gets to exercise its role of “advise and consent.” And as we know, sometimes there are more liberal justices on the court and sometimes there are more conservatives on the court. And as we know, the last time a president attempted to delegitimize and stack a Supreme Court, it was a damn Democrat then, too.
Barack Obama is beneath nothing; which is why he has now repeatedly politically attacked the Supreme Court of the United States.
Apparently Obama got a secret phone call tipping him off that the Supreme Court decided to protect the last tiny shred that was left of the Constitution.
Somehow the “constitutional scholar” who taught at an elite university fails to understand that a bill being passed – particularly a bill being passed with basically no Republican votes whatsoever – in absolutely no way makes it “constitutional.” It wasn’t very long ago that Obama sicked his attorney general on a duly and lawfully passed law in the state of Arizona. It wasn’t very long ago that the California voters passed by a substantial majority Proposition 8, only to be shot down by a single judge who then quickly retired so he could be beyond the reach of the people. And Obama cheerleaded those decisions. And the US Congress does not rise above the law any more than the states or the people do, Barry Hussein.
And how many times did Republican presidents publicly demonize the Supreme Court in open contempt for the constitutional separation of powers??? That’s right, just like what Obama is: ZERO!!! Because that’s a loathsome act that only an abject disgrace to the presidency would sink to.
Hint: Obama has picked two Supreme Court Justices (Kagan and Sotomayor) himself for this “unelected body.” They are both clearly illegitimate according to Obama’s own attack.
There had been a long precedent of Supreme Court justices attending the speech as a symbol of the three branches of government being united together under a common Constitution. But Obama’s demagoguery pretty much put the kibosh on that. Supreme Court justices risk being singled out and attacked if they attend such a politicized event.
Please remember that if the Supreme Court decision goes in Obama’s favor, the Court will be every bit as “unelected” as if it had ruled against Obama, and it will be every bit as illegitimate.
Please also remember that the murder of innocent babies is also illegitimate. The difference between Republican conservatives and Democrat fascists is that the former respect the rule of law even when they firmly believe the law is wrong. Democrats take to the street and violently riot as we have seen them do with the fascist Occupy movement and very recently with the Trayvon Martin episode. If Democrats can’t make the laws and then shove those laws down other peoples’ throats, they don’t believe they should be accountable to it in any way, shape or form.
And please remember that the very Constitution itself is illegitimate according to Obama. After all, it was that document that Obama decried when he attacked the Court as “unelected.”
I think that we can say that the Constitution reflected the enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day and that the framers had that same blind spot. I don’t think the two views are contradictory to say that it was a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now and to say that it also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.
Let’s also not forget this Hypocrite-in-Chief has now repeatedly used the power of his courts to undermine the DULY PASSED LAWS OF NUMEROUS STATES. Let’s not forget how Obama trampled all over the Constitution when he made recess appointments while the Senate was STILL IN SESSION. Let’s not forget how Obama spoke to a racist Hispanic “rights” group called “La Raza” (“the race”) while they were asking him to unilaterally stop deportation proceedings against illegals. Obama said:
“The idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. I promise you, not just on immigration reform. But that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions. That’s not how our Constitution is written.”
Let’s not forget that Obama did precisely what he himself had just called un-American, undemocratic and unconstitutional when he essentially pardoned illegal immigrants who had already been caught and were awaiting deportation.
Let’s not forget that this is THEmost unconstitutional presidency in the history of America.
It’s not the Supreme Court that is invalid: it is the president and the presidency of the United States that is invalid.
You have to imagine it: the left thought and thought and thought about their ObamaCare date with the Supreme Court. In their little feral minds they had all the witty one-liners that simply stumped the conservative judges. Sadly for them, reality happened. And all of their fabulous arguments turned out to be a giant, stinking load of crap which blew up in their faces the moment the justices started asking questions.
The funny thing is that most of the questions that have them so stumped and panicked were the same questions that conservatives were asking all along. Only the left somehow never bothered to have an honest argument with us about the inherent fascism of ObamaCare. So even though they could have listened to us and maybe actually prepared some kind of response, they were left wildly unprepared.
I’ve found that again and again in my exchanges with liberals on this blog. It’s like I can make the same point five times and even count each time I make that same point and they just pretend I didn’t make it so they can keep living in their freaky little world of circular reasoning.
And I also found this same phenomenon to be the case when I was in seminary. In several of my exegesis courses, students were required to choose commentaries from two separate lists – one basically conservative evangelical, and the other liberal – and write our papers specifically taking into account arguments made by both schools of thought. What I found in every single case was that the conservative evangelicals painstakingly reproduced the arguments of their liberal counterparts and attempted to show why their own argument was the correct one over against the liberals’ arguments; whereas the liberals either entirely ignored (most of the time) or presented a dismissive straw-man of the conservative evangelical commentators.
I took a couple of courses from William Lane Craig – a brilliant scholar who became famous for his debates with top atheists. Dr. Craig was a gracious man who would have his lunch at a table with students so he could share his time and knowledge with students who greatly valued both. I asked Bill Craig about his debates, and he told me that he painstakingly studied up on the works of his opponents, whereas he often had the idea that they simply showed up completely ignorant of his own writings. And he routinely mopped the floor with them.
I still remember a particular debate between Craig and Oxford chemist Peter Atkins. In one exchange toward the end of the debate, Craig provided a statement of what a now very harried Atkins had said. Atkins arrogantly literally said, “Those aren’t my words. My words are much too sophisticated, much too erudite…” And a frankly appalled Bill Craig said, “I was reading a direct quote.” And Atkins’ jaw slammed shut. You should also understand that Craig’s argument dealt with the numerous scientific and logical facts that demonstrated that the universe was created by an intelligent designer; Atkins’ argument centered on pure metaphysical speculation that there are myriad alternate realities and that the fact that our reality would appear to have been the product of design was merely by sheer random chance. The entire debate was thus a remarkable turnaround in which the philosopher-theologian (Craig) relied on science and facts and the “scientist” (Atkins) relied on purely-faith-based speculation.
Justice Scalia’s point is a commonsense repetition of Justice Kennedy’s basic question: “Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” Or, can you force citizens to purchase something just so you can regulate them?
The people most under assault by this law are those who HAVEN’T purchased insurance. The ObamaCare mandate is all about forcing people to purchase insurance just so liberals can then dictate what insurance they must purchase.
The guy who uploaded this to YouTube calls it a “benchslap.” It’s loads of fun, and the point about limited powers will sound familiar. The key part comes early when Scalia jumps in to challenge Verrilli’s citation of Court precedent. Those cases dealt with commerce, he says; in this case, the legislation is aimed at people who aren’t participating in commerce, i.e. people without insurance. That’s a gut-punch to the left since, once you make that move conceptually, the Commerce Clause defense of the statute is hanging by a thread. You can follow his thinking over the rest of the clip from there. If it’s not commerce, then Congress has no power to regulate it, and if Congress has no power to regulate it, then the Tenth Amendment says this is a matter for the states. And to think, a few days ago, Democrats thought they might be able to use Scalia’s Raich opinion to swing him over to their side.
Roberts was a bit more equivocal in today’s arguments but read Philip Klein’s analysis of the rhetoric he used in his comments from the bench. There were an awful lot of phrases in there suggesting he was arguing from belief against the statute, not merely as a devil’s advocate to probe the lawyers’ arguments. Meanwhile, over at SCOTUSblog, Kevin Russell looks at Roberts’s and Alito’s questioning and wonders, “Is Kennedy the only possible fifth vote for the government?” His conclusion: Yep, pretty much. Exit question: C’mon, a Reagan appointee’s not really going to be the fifth vote for the ObamaCare mandate, is he? Good lord.
The Obama regime already appears to be preparing for defeat, given that they are already talking down the Supreme Court as a biased body, which leaves you asking: does that mean if ObamaCare WINSin court the American people should just disregard the verdict as “biased”?
During the Court’s hearing oral arguments I heard over and over again – even from Ruth Bader Ginsburg – that the “conservative” thing to do would be to keep the law. Because only the same liberals who would utterly clueless about the questions they would be getting from conservative justices actualy understand “conservatism,” you see. And so of course liberals have to tell us what we should think to be good conservatives the same way they constantly have to tell their own zombie-followers what to think.
The liberals’ “logic” is actually rather funny: if liberals vote like liberals it’s perfectly fine; but if conservatives vote according to conservative principles it’s “biased.” Nobody would think the four liberals ruling as goose-step-marching liberals is biased, of course.
RUSH: Grab sound bite two before we get to sound bites 23 and 24. This is last night. We’ll do a little timeline here involving Jeff Toobin. Last night on Charlie Rose, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin – who, by the way, for those of you old enough to remember, is the son of former NBC News reporter Marlene Sanders. He wrote a big book after the O.J. trial, and he’s been at CNN for quite a while. And Charlie Rose said, Jeffrey Toobin, “How big a deal is this Obamacare case at the Supreme Court?”
TOOBIN: Epic! Awesome! Enormous! Huge!
ROSE: (guffawing)
TOOBIN: This is the biggest case involving the power of the federal government since the New Deal. And if this law is struck down, the federal government is gonna look very different the next day. And lots of plans and lots existing programs are in jeopardy. So, I mean, as big as you think this case is, it’s actually bigger.
RUSH: Last night, Jeffrey Toobin accurately describes the size and scope of Obamacare. Today, it’s Politico “breaking news,” but we’ve got sound bites from CNN. Toobin, quote: “This law looks like it’s going to be struck down. I’m telling you, all of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong… [I]f I had to bet today, Wolf, I would bet that this court is going to strike down the individual mandate.” Tom Goldstein, attorney and cofounder, center-left SCOTUS blog: “The individual mandate is in trouble, significant trouble.” Los Angeles Times’ Noam Levey: “Tuesday’s arguments may signal trouble for the mandate, widely seen as a cornerstone of the law’s program for achieving universal health care coverage for the first time in the nation’s history.”
Politico breaking news: “The conservative justices and potential swing vote Anthony Kennedy raised concerns Tuesday that forcing Americans to buy health insurance would open the door to other intrusive requirements from the federal government…” What was so hard to predict about this? This goes right to my point. What’s so hard to predict that this thing is unconstitutional? It is unconstitutional. And a Civics 101 student in junior high, after having the Constitution explained to them, would know this. And here come these legal experts: “There’s no way that justices are gonna strike this down! There ain’t no way,” and then after one day of oral arguments, these same experts (probably just as qualified as the economic experts at the Associated Press) say: My God, these justices, they don’t like the individual mandate! We’re in big trouble.
Here’s Jeff Toobin. He’s on CNN this afternoon. The coanchor, Ashleigh Banfield, said, “Tell me everything, Jeff. What happened today?”
TOOBIN: This was a train wreck for the Obama administration. This law looks like it’s gonna be struck down. Justice Kennedy, the swing vote, was enormously skeptical. Every comment Kennedy made — uh, at least that I heard — was skeptical of the law. The wild card in this argument was, uh, Chief Justice Roberts. Chief Justice Roberts actually asked a lot of hard questions. Roberts seemed like a much more likely vote to uphold the law than Kennedy was.
RUSH: See, he had to find something positive after saying today “was a train wreck for the Obama administration.” And again he said, “I’m telling you, all of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong… this court is going to strike down the individual mandate.” Wolf Blitzer then weighed in…
BLITZER: This is really huge! Uh, uh, uh, what you’re saying — and you’re an authority on the US Supreme Court. You’ve written the major book on the current Supreme Court — uh, The Nine. So you fully understand. But just because a justice is asking tough questions, let’s say of the government lawyer — Mr. Verrilli in this case — that doesn’t necessarily mean that that justice is gonna come down on the other side. Isn’t that right?
TOOBIN: It’s true, but it’s not very true, Wolf. Yes, it is true that sometimes we’re surprised by the justices’ votes after hearing their comments at oral argument. Most of the time — and it’s not all the time, but most of the time — the questions that the justices ask at oral argument are very good predictors of how they’re gonna vote.
RUSH: So the left is in panic! Wolf Blitzer is in panic, looking for a life preserver from Jeff Toobin, who didn’t give him one. And they’re shocked! This is what’s funny. They are shocked. We aren’t. Well, we might be because we’re surprised that the Constitution is actually being adhered to here, or appears to be.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to temper your expectations on this. This is just oral argument, and we’re nowhere near the vote on this thing and we really don’t know how this is gonna go. All we have right now is palpable fear on the left. … This fascinates me, all of this shock and surprise on the left. The media, court watchers, leftist legal beagles. They are in a state of shock, a legitimate state of shock, folks. They really believed this was gonna sail through. And we have to always keep in mind how relatively young most of these people are, and thus how they’ve been educated. They didn’t get Constitution 101 like I did. They have been taught that the Constitution’s a flawed document that needs to be changed whenever it can be.
And this represents the greatest opportunity to do that that they have all ever had. The very fact that Obamacare became law against the objection of a majority of the American people — and the way it became law, basically under cover of darkness with every legislative trick under the sun being tried — didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that it might be illegal. It didn’t matter that it might be unconstitutional, because that’s precisely what this was about: Making it constitutional by virtue of changing the Constitution and using this law to do it. Then all of a sudden the oral arguments come up today, and the four conservative justices and the so-called swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, all have problems with the mandate.
And they’re literally shocked, A, that everybody doesn’t have the same worldview of this that they do; and, B, that there is any objection to it at all. Remember for these people the government is the end. It’s the be-all, end-all. Government is the final authority. Government is where everything important happens and every important decision happens for everybody. But it didn’t go that way today in the case of oral arguments and so now they’re scratching their heads and they’re genuinely surprised. Jeffrey Toobin is genuinely surprised. The CNN legal guy predicted this would sail through, and they probably were looking at this court’s actions on campaign finance law, McCain-Feingold. “Well, if that sailed through, this will.”
So where we are with this is the left now blogging incessantly their fears and their hopes at the same time. There is a left-wing blog called SCOTUSblog, Supreme Court of the United States. And this is a very relevant post on that blog: “Towards the end of the argument the most important question was Justice Kennedy’s. After pressing the government with great questions, Kennedy raised the possibility that the plaintiffs [i.e., the government] were right that the mandate was a unique effort to force people into commerce to subsidize health insurance, but the insurance market may be unique enough to justify that unusual treatment.”
So they take all of Kennedy’s questioning here, which indicated to Toobin: This thing’s dead, this thing is a “train wreck.” One question by Kennedy at the end is now given them hope that he might see this as so unique that he would vote for the mandate. A reporter at the Huffing and Puffington Post is saying that it’s, quote, “almost entirely unequivocal that a majority of the court thinks Obamacare is unconstitutional.” They are scared to death. Lyle Denniston used to be the court reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He posts this:
“If Justice Anthony M. Kennedy can locate a limiting principle in the federal government’s defense of the new individual health insurance mandate, or can think of one on his own, the mandate may well survive. If he does, he may take Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and a majority along with him,” and therefore give us a huge winning majority. “But if [Kennedy] does not, the mandate is gone. That is where Tuesday’s argument wound up — with Kennedy, after first displaying a very deep skepticism, leaving the impression that he might yet be the mandate’s savior.” A lot of these blogs are being critical of the solicitor general, the government’s lawyer, Mr. “Virility.”
One blog is saying: “I can’t believe how poorly prepared this guy was on the mandate! I can’t believe they sent him up there and he had no idea how to answer these very obvious questions on the mandate.” So apparently the government’s lawyer didn’t do a good job. The left can’t believe he wasn’t prepared any better. Well, how do you defend the indefensible? What is this guy gonna say? When that burial analogy comes up, he’s dead. When the broccoli analogy comes up, he’s dead. If you’re up arguing before the Supreme Court that the government has the right to require us to buy health insurance, then why not burial insurance? Why not broccoli?
This guy had no answer for that other than a bunch of gobbledygook. And all of his supporters watching this know what a poor job he did, and so now they’re worried, and they’ve just go on a little carrot. Anthony Kennedy gave ‘em a little carrot dangling there at the far end of the mine. It’s right down there next to the canary. He might find a way. This situation is so unique and we’re talking about health care, so maybe this could be okay. That’s what they’re desperately hoping. But their instincts tell them that it was a “train wreck” today. And I must tell you, I still find it… I don’t know, I guess I shouldn’t, ’cause I know how they were educated (which was poorly). I’m still struck by the fact that they’re surprised, that they’re shocked.
What world do they live in?
This could not have been the first day in their lives that they’ve heard these objections to the mandate. But what if it is? What if they live in such a close-knit circle and they hang around only with each other? What if it actually was the first time they’ve heard these objections? That can’t be! These objections, these arguments, against the mandate have been made throughout the media everywhere. So I guess they just locked in on the idea that it doesn’t have a prayer of losing. But like so much of liberalism, and like so many liberals, they live in their cloistered world of the faculty lounge. They sit around and they talk theory all day. They don’t understand dynamism. Everything is static to them.
And then they get confronted with reality one day and it’s like a cold shower or a slap upside the head and they are bewildered. And it still amazes me that people who are reputed to be so intelligent and so smart can be so surprised when they hear arguments — logical arguments — that make it obvious this is unconstitutional. But, again, I fall back on something we must never forget, and that is: This is not about health care and it’s not about the mandate per se. It’s about changing the Constitution. Not piecemeal with this one. This is huge. If you have it codified as the law of the land that the government can make you buy something? Then, my friends, the Constitution has finally been defeated — and that’s what they can taste. In fact, it’s in their grasp, but it’s a little slippery and they can’t hold onto it.
But it’s right there.
Right there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Wolf Blitzer was in hysterics moment ago on CNN. He had the congressional correspondent Kate Bolduan on. They had this exchange. We already heard Toobin. Blitzer is beside himself with what happened today on oral arguments.
BLITZER: Kate, you were inside the courtroom! The solicitor general, uh, Donald Verrilli, uh, was he sort of stumbling? Did he not have the right answers? Uh, did he seem unprepared and overly nervous in responding to the conservative justices’ tough questioning?
BOLDUAN: It’s hard to get into his mind. But I can say, if you compare it to yesterday, he did appear to stumble more; almost seem apologetic for some of the answers that he was giving.
RUSH: Yeah. Yeah. So now it’s time to dump on “Virility” here, the government lawyer. Blitzer: “[W]as he sort of stumbling? Did he not have the right answers? Did he seen unprepared…?” Wolf, you go defend this law up there and see how you do. There isn’t anybody who can! Obama’s not even trying to defend it. Pelosi’s only defense is, “What do you mean ‘unconstitutional’? Don’t be silly!” Nobody can defend this. Nobody. It isn’t constitutional.
END TRANSCRIPT
I just wish I was as confident about the outcome that is so panicking Jeffrey Toobin. But I can imagine Justice Kennedy giving his ruling in agreement with the liberals and – borrowing a phrase from Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper - saying “BAZINGA!”
Because that’s just how the law often works due to the fact that it is pretty much dominated by outrageous nerds.
But at least it’s fun to watch liberals squirm with the fear that maybe they won’t get their Big Brother takeover of society that they’ve been dreaming about.
In the penultimate scene in the movie Chinatown, Faye Dunaway’s character literally gets the truth beaten out of her. Her interviewer repeatedly says, “I want the truth!” And Evelyn says, “She’s my sister …” (slap). ”She’s my daughter …” (slap). ”My sister, my daughter …” (slap, slap). And then finally the awful truth comes out: ”She’s my sister AND my daughter!”
That kind of literally inbred thinking is what ObamaCare – and for that matter the psychotic ”We-have-to-pass-the-bill-so-that-you-can-find-out-what-is-in-it” Democrat Party – is all about.
What is ObamaCare? It’s whatever it has to be at any given moment to impose it on the American people:
On the first day of health care reform arguments before the Supreme Court, two justices needled a top Obama lawyer for simultaneously calling the fine that will be paid under the law for not purchasing insurance a “penalty” and a “tax.”
The confusion arises because of the administration’s argument that the power to enforce the individual mandate is rooted in Congress’ taxing power — but that the mechanism itself is designed to be a penalty, not a revenue-generating policy.
The narrow but important distinction created a communication challenge for the lawyer representing the Obama administration.
U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli used the phrase “tax penalty” multiple times to describe the individual mandate’s backstop. He portrayed the fee as a penalty by design, but one that functions as a tax because it’s collected through the tax code.
“General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow you are going to be back and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax,” said Justice Samuel Alito, in one of the few laugh lines throughout the 90 minutes of argument Monday.
The remark underscores the fine line the White House is walking in its argument. On one hand, it says the backstop is not a tax, because that could subject it to the Anti-Injunction Act — the focal point of Monday’s arguments — and delay a ruling to at least 2015. On the other, they claim that the power to impose a penalty derives from Congress’ broad taxing power. That’s in part because calling it a tax makes defending the mandate easier — Congress’ power to levy taxes is less in question than its power to require people to do things.
Justice Elena Kagan asked whether refusing to buy insurance would constitute breaking the law, to which Verrilli responded that if people “pay the tax, then they are in compliance with the law.” That caught the attention of Justice Stephen Breyer.
“Why do you keep saying tax?” Breyer interjected, to more laughs.
The justices, particularly the four Democratic-appointees, and Justice Antonin Scalia, appeared skeptical that the fine constitutes a tax.
The distinction is nuanced, but key to one of the administration’s arguments.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it’s still a tax increase.
OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase.
This man is a liar whose lies reverse themselves and then twist back like a pretzel. And the really amazing thing about it is that at no point in the process is he EVERtelling the truth.
At least the Supreme Court officially has officially recognized that Barack Obama is a disingenuous lying weasel. Although I hope that isn’t our consolation prize, that at least has to count for something.
President Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul is projected to cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, reports the Congressional Budget Office, a hefty sum more than the $940 billion estimated when the healthcare legislation was signed into law. To put it mildly, ObamaCare’s projected net worth is far off from its original estimate — in fact, about $820 billion off.
Backtracking to his September 2009 remarksto a joint session of Congress on healthcare, Obama asserted the following: “Now, add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years — less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.”
When the final CBO report was released before the law’s passage, critics surmised that the actual 10-year cost would far exceed the advertised projections. In other words, the numbers were seemingly obscured through a political ploy devised to jam the legislation through Congress.
“Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation,” asserted Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner, “the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014.” This accounting maneuver allowed analysts to cloak the true cost of ObamaCare, Klein alleged, making the law appear less expensive under the CBO’s budget window.
That is one expensive inbred socialist takeover. And of course “controlling costs” was one of the lies that ObamaCare was sold under.
Here’s another lie ObamaCare was sold under: it would insure 40 million Americans:
[F]rom the CBO’s Tuesday report. Revised estimatesof ObamaCare’s coverage provisions indicate that 2 million fewer people will acquire coverage by 2016.
Moreover, the CBO estimates that 4 million Americans will lose their employer-sponsored health plans by 2016, a far cry from the 1-million-person figure forecasted last year. Further yet, 1 million to 2 million fewer people will be granted access to the federally-subsidized healthcare exchanges, while an additional 1 million are estimated to qualify for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Provision.
In a second blog post published on Tuesday, Mr. Klein summed up the debacle: “It’s also worth noting that we were told time and again during the health care debate that the law didn’t represent a government takeover of health care. But by 2022, according to the CBO, 3 million fewer people will have health insurance through their employer, while 17 million Americans will be added to Medicaid and 22 million will be getting coverage through government-run exchanges.”
Pay far more, get half as much. All that matters is that the Marxist Democrat Party is allowed to usurp control over the health care system so you have to vote for them just to save your own wretched life.
Everything about this bill is dishonest and depraved. Including how the Obama lawyers are trying to sell their load of lies to the Supreme Court.
WASHINGTON — Nearly two years after President Barack Obama signed his landmark health care package into law, three-quarters of registered voters believe the law’s requirement that every American carry health insurance is unconstitutional, according to a new survey.
A USA Today/Gallup poll taken earlier this month and released Monday found that a majority of voters _ those surveyed in battleground states and nationwide generally — agreed in their dislike of the Affordable Care Act. Voters in battleground states are more likely to want it repealed, the poll showed.
Fifty-three percent of voters polled in battleground states _ Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin _ said they would favor repealing the law if a Republican is elected president in November. Nationwide, 40 percent said they would favor repeal.
A majority of voters — 50 percent nationwide and 53 percent in battleground states — consider the law a bad thing. The vast majority of voters feel the law has so far had no effect on them or their families, but more than 40 percent believe it will ultimately make things worse.
The results are disappointing news for Obama, whose re-election campaign counts enactment of the health care law as a signature achievement of his administration. And voters’ dislike of the law is likely to be revived next month when the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of the law.
The survey also polled voters on their general election preferences. Nationwide, Obama and Mitt Romney are tied in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, with 47 percent each, according to the poll. Rick Santorum holds a 3 percentage point advantage with 49 percent compared to Obama’s 46 percent. Both results are within the sampling error of four percentage points.
Of a number of polls released Monday, the USA Today/Gallup survey painted the gloomiest picture for Obama. A Rasmussen tracking poll showed Obama leading Romney 45 percent to 43 percent and ahead of Santorum, 47 percent to 42 percent. A Politico/GWU/Battleground poll showed Obama leading Romney 53 percent to 43 percent and leading Santorum 53 percent to 42 percent.
It is not unusual for results to vary widely among different polls, as methodology and subject matter can skew results. For example, a recent polling experiment by Marquette University Law School found that the order of pollsters’ questions can impact respondents’ favorability toward a candidate. In that survey, Obama’s favorability was greater among respondents who were asked job-approval questions before being asked about the economy.
The Obama presidency itself ought to be unconstitutional.
