Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Why The Senate Is Not Planning To Pass A Budget

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Going on the record in an election year is not always a fun process. An article in today’s Washington Free Beacon points out some of the hazards to the Democrats that bringing a budget to the floor of the Senate would bring.

The article points out:

Pursuing a budget resolution would trigger an open amendment process—often called a “vote-a-rama”—comprising 50 hours of debate and dozens of votes on individual amendments offered by Senators.

That would allow Republicans to force simple majority votes, not subject to the standard 60-vote requirement, on individual aspects of the health care law as well as a measure to partially defund the new federal apparatus it created.

That would put Obamacare in serious jeopardy. The House of Representatives has already repealed the unpopular bill, and the Supreme Court may do the same to Obamacare’s key components.

“With the Supreme Court decision at hand, Obamacare is back in the news again, and it’s still unpopular,” one GOP Senate aide told the Free Beacon. “How many Democrats in swing states want to run, essentially, on voting multiple times to support it?”

If the current members of the Senate (in either party) do not have the courage of their convictions, it is time to elect members of the Senate who do. This is ridiculous.

There have already been provisions of Obamacare that Congress has repealed–the House has already repealed the entire bill, but the Senate has not. One of the tax provisions in Obamacare has been repealed by both Houses of Congress, Community Living Assistance Services and Support Program (CLASS Act) has been repealed by the House, and the repeal of IPAB (appointed death panels) has also won support in both parties.

Legally, the Senate is required to pass a budget, but I’m not holding my breath.

 

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The Next Battle In The Healthcare War

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On Thursday, Matt Sheffield posted an article at CNS News about the next step in the war over Obamacare. Although it is not at all a sure thing, there are many people who feel that the Supreme Court will strike down the law as unconstitutional because it requires all Americans to purchase a product whether they want to or not. Mr. Sheffield points out that the left is already preparing for the next battle. He cites some recent statements by left-leaning pundits:

If the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate in Obamacare, the result will be higher insurance premiums and, “we’ll just blame Republicans for it,” says Democratic strategist Bob Beckel, appearing on the Wednesday edition of Fox News’ The Five.

…Andrew Koppelman, writing in Salon today, asserted that the arguments against the individual mandate amount to nothing more than “silliness,” and said the “silly” arguments “nonetheless seemed to sometimes move Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito.”
 
…Steven Rosenfeld, writing at AlterNet, says Republicans “don’t want to fix our broken healthcare system.” He writes: “The Republican Party again showed its petulant, “party-of-no” face on Tuesday as lawyers representing 26 red states and conservative think-tanks told the U.S. Supreme Court that nobody should be forced have health insurance—even if people carrying insurance end up subsidizing the defiantly uninsured who get ill.
 
The Supreme Court is expected to release its decision sometime in June or July. Prepare for healthcare to be a major issue during the 2012 election. Be ready to listen carefully as very little of what you hear may actually be true.
 
 
 
 
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Some Thoughts On The Supreme Court Debate On The Affordable Care Act This Week

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Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post posted an article yesterday summing up her feelings about the Supreme Court debate this week.

Ms. Rubin wrote that Obamcare suffered a severability trainwreck at the Supreme Court. The argument for striking down the entire law if the individual mandate is found unconstitutional is that without the individual mandate to herd customers to insurance companies and provide financial support for the other provisions of the law, the goal of universal access would be thwarted. The individual mandate is the only way that Obamacare can provide insurance coverage for everyone. Because Obamacare goes against basic business principles (as well as the U. S. Constitution), it will not work.

The article reports:

It was that kind of day for the government. The argument today was another instance in which the challengers rolled up their sleeves, got into the text of the statute and made a convincing case. The government never sufficiently spelled out how the mandate could be severed from the rest of the bill without upsetting the intricate system of subsidies and the goal of expanded access. In hiding the ball from the public by virtue of an overly intricate fog of misdirection, and in disguising the essence of the scheme — healthy, young people who might not otherwise want insurance are compelled to buy it to ameliorate the costs of others — Congress sent the Supreme Court a legal knot that will be hard to undo.

Part of the arguments for Obamacare come from people who do not understand how insurance works. There does need to be some protection for people who develop serious medical problems so that their insurance companies cannot abandon them–however, we can use a fly swatter instead of a nuclear weapon to deal with this issue and still get the job done.

If the free market were allowed to operate in health insurance, we would be able to find our way out of any current insurance problems without doing things that will not work and are unconstitutional. A few basic suggestions–tort reform, portability of health insurance from one job to another, tax breaks to help people afford health insurance, selling health insurance across state lines. These ideas are all constitutional and might actually help solve the problem of the high cost of health insurance.

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Yesterday At The Supreme Court

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Paul Clement was the lawyer arguing at the Supreme Court on behalf of Florida and the other states who are challenging Obamacare.

I have listened to a large part of his argument against the idea that the Commerce Clause allows the government to force people into commerce in order the regulate them rather than to regulate the people who are already engaging in commerce. I believe that Obamacare as it is written is not constitutional, but we shall see what the court decides.

The discussion I have heard is that if Obamacare is found constitutional, the idea that our government is a government of enumerated limited powers is over. If the individual mandate part of Obamacare is found constitutional, be ready to have the government require you to join a gym, eat certain foods, purchase a car, etc.

We will have to wait until June to know what the outcome of this case will be, but hopefully Obamacare will die with the individual mandate.

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Two Very Good Articles On ObamaCare On The Internet Today

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There are two very good articles on ObamaCare on the Internet today. The first was posted yesterday at Investors.com and the second is in today’s Wall Street Journal. The Supreme Court will begin arguing ObamaCare on Monday.

The Investors.com article points how ObamaCare will increase the cost of medical care and insurance for the people who are insured–not actually lower the cost for anyone.

The article reports:

…By 2019, roughly 16 million people out of the 50 million uninsured will be forced into coverage thanks to the individual mandate. Of those 16 million, some 6 million to 7 million will be covered for the first time by Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Medicaid, however, provides very low reimbursement rates to participating doctors and hospitals — only 58% of those normally paid by insurance companies. Medicaid often doesn’t pay enough to cover a provider’s costs.

Under the government’s logic, hospitals and doctors will be forced to raise prices for the insured to cover their costs, which will be passed along as higher premiums. The total cost shift under Medicaid is substantially greater than for the uninsured who fail to pay their bills.

Moreover, the increased cost-shifting phenomenon used by the government to justify the individual mandate will only grow worse as Medicaid enrollment expands due to the mandate.

ObamaCare will totally ruin any part of the medical insurance and patient care system that currently works.

The Wall Street Journal article is entitled, “Liberty and ObamaCare.” It deals with the constitutional question of the individual mandate. The article also gives some insight on how the Obama Administration will argue the case:

Consider a White House strategy memo that leaked this month, revealing that senior Administration officials are coordinating with liberal advocacy groups to pressure the Court. “Frame the Supreme Court oral arguments in terms of real people and real benefits that would be lost if the law were overturned,” the memo notes, rather than “the individual responsibility piece of the law and the legal precedence [sic].” Those nonpolitical details are merely what “lawyers will be talking about.”

Does anyone remember the old lawyers’ joke, “If the law is on your side, pound the law; if the evidence is on your side, pound the evidence; if neither is on your side, pound the table.” It sounds as if the Obama Administration plans to pound the table.

Talk radio host Hugh Hewitt (a law professor and practicing lawyer) has promised to highlight the arguments on his radio show (6 pm to 9 pm East Coast Time). I am looking forward to what he has to say.

 

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The End Of A Nightmare For An American Family

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Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a building lot near Priest Lake in 2005. They planned to build a house there. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had other ideas. As I reported in rightwinggranny on January 9, 2012, the lot is less than an acre and is just 500 feet from Priest Lake on its west side. It is separated from the lake by a house and a road and has no standing water or any hydrologic connection to Lake Priest or any other body of water. Nevertheless, the EPA declared their lot a wetland and threatened to fine them $30,000 every day that they did not return the lot to its original condition. Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled on the lawsuit that followed.

CNBC reported today:

In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court rejected EPA’s argument that allowing property owners quick access to courts to contest orders like the one issued to the Sacketts would compromise the agency’s ability to deal with water pollution.

“Compliance orders will remain an effective means of securing prompt voluntary compliance in those many cases where there is no substantial basis to question their validity,” Scalia said.

In this case, the couple objected to the determination that their small lot contained wetlands that are regulated by the Clean Water Act, and they complained there was no reasonable way to challenge the order without risking fines that can mount quickly.

The value of this case is that it gives Americans a way to fight the EPA when it interferes with private property rights. Since the EPA is one of the ways some people in our government plan to institute Agenda 21(see rightwinggranny) and begin to end the concept of private property in the United States, this is a very important decision.

These are two quotes from United Nations leaders regarding private property:

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class–involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing–are not sustainable.”  Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit

“Land, because of its unique nature and the crucial role it plays in human settlements, cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of the accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes.”  This is a quote from the 1976 UN Conference on Human Settlement, held in Vancouver, Canada. Under “Section D. Land,” of the Report of Habitat, which came out of the conference. It is from the preamble and speaks of the private ownership of land.

These quotes are from rightwinggranny on December 14, 2011. I am sure the Supreme Court will be called upon to rule on private property rights in the future. The President we elect in November will have a major role in deciding who sits on the Supreme Court. If you value American’s property rights, you will vote for a Republican in November. Otherwise, you may find yourself with a Supreme Court that does not support private property rights in America.

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The Supreme Court Rules On Lutheran School Teacher Firing

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On Wednesday, Christianity Today posted an article about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the firing of a school teacher in a Lutheran School. The court ruled that the teacher was a ‘minister’ and could not sue the church after she was fired in 2005.

The article reports:

“The First Amendment provides, in part, that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,'” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the unanimous opinion. “We have said that these two Clauses ‘often exert conflicting pressures,’ and that there can be ‘internal tension … between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.’ Not so here. Both Religion Clauses bar the government from interfering with the decision of a religious group to fire one of its ministers.”

This is an important ruling. The article points out how this ruling may impact some recent decisions regarding religious groups on college campuses:

If the government can’t tell a church or religious group to accept or reject a minister, he asks, “How then it can be constitutional for a public university to tell religious student groups what criteria they can and cannot use in selecting their leaders? Does this decision have a penumbra that strengthens the freedom of religious organizations more broadly? That remains to be seen–yet the language and the unanimity of the decision are encouraging.”

Kim Colby, senior counsel for the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom, was similarly encouraged. “This decision should help religious groups that are being charged with ‘religious discrimination’ when they require their leaders to agree with their statement of faith,” she said. “In a conflict between nondiscrimination laws and religious liberty, religious liberty prevailed. Nondiscrimination laws serve vital and good purposes in our society. But they have been increasingly misused to harm religious liberty in a number of contexts over the past decade.”

The CLS lost a Supreme Court battle last year when the justices ruled 5-4 that a California law school can bar groups that require leaders to sign a statement of faith.

The battle for freedom to allow religious groups to be religious is just beginning. If I started a bridge club, I would want the people joining to be interested in playing or learning to play bridge. It makes no sense to allow someone to join a bridge club if they are only interested in playing hearts or poker (or even volleyball). That is not discrimination–it is common sense. Sometimes you have to discriminate–not because you are being unfair, but because you are protecting a common interest. A bridge club that plays hearts or poker (or volleyball) really does not make a lot of sense. 

 

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American, Your Property Rights Are Being Taken Away

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On Friday, CNS News reported the story of Michael and Chantell Sackett, an Idaho couple who bought a piece of land in Idaho in order to build their dream house. Unfortunately, their plans to build their dream house have become a nightmare.

The article reports:

The Sacketts, small business owners in Idaho, located a lot in the northern part of the state in a town called Priest Lake. According to court documents, the lot is less than an acre and is just 500 feet from Priest Lake on its west side. It is separated from the lake by a house and a road and has no standing water or any hydrologic connection to Lake Priest or any other body of water.

However, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared their lot a wetland, and the nightmare began.

The article further reports:

Following the EPA “compliance” order, the Sacketts hired a private engineer who, following an inspection of the property, provided a report stating that the property is not wetlands.The EPA did not relent.

On Monday (today) the case will go before the Supreme Court. This is a case to watch. The property was not listed on the EPA’s online wetland inventory, but the EPA declared it a wetland anyway. This sets a dangerous precedent. You can imagine local politicians getting involved in this sort of struggle and all sorts of money required to get the necessary permits. There is a very large chance for abuse if this arbitrary ruling is allowed to stand. I realize that we have an obligation to protect the environment, but we also have an obligation under our Constitution to protect private property rights.

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The Behind The Scenes Battle To End Obamacare

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days Elena Kagan since 2010

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Rick Moran at the American Thinker posted an article today about the Department of Justice’s refusal to release documents requested by forty-nine members of Congress regarding Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s involvement with ObamaCare during her term as Solicitor General in the Obama Administration.

The article reports:

…Four months later the Justice Department wrote back declining to produce the documents. In that letter, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich explained that the department has “grave concerns about the prospect of a congressional investigation into the pre-confirmation activities of a sitting Supreme Court Justice.” Justice Kagan, he added, had addressed the issue of her ObamaCare involvement during her confirmation hearings.
Since I suspect that one of the reasons Justice Kagan was nominated to the Supreme Court was her involvement in Obamacare (and I suspect the Obama administration knew ObamaCare would eventually wind up at the Supreme Court), there is no way the administration is going to do anything that might possibly cause Justice Kagan to have to recuse herself.
The article concludes:
This is crucial. If Kagan doesn’t vote, and 4 to 4 tie resulted, the vote would uphold the decision of a lower court judge that Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional. Obviously, Kagan can count noses on the court too which is why she will refuse to recuse herself.
This could be an interesting battle.

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This Is Not A New Story But It Is An Important One

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On May 9, Seth Lipsky posted an article at the Wall Street Journal regarding the case of a 9-year-old American citizen named Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky. Known in the case as MBZ, Menachem was born in 2002 in Jerusalem. He wants the American Embassy in Tel Aviv to issue him a certificate of birth abroad stating that he was born in Israel.

The article reports:

The relevant law is the part of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2002 that deals with “United States policy with respect to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” The Supreme Court will adjudicate the provision stating that, for “purposes of the registration of birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport of a United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary [of State] shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen’s legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel.”

The law passed the Senate and the House–the Senate by unanimous consent. Just for the record, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the Senate at the time. When George W. Bush signed the law, the article reports:

…he issued a signing statement suggesting that he didn’t intend to enforce that part of the law. The measure, he said, “impermissibly interferes with the President’s constitutional authority to conduct the Nation’s foreign affairs and to supervise the unitary executive branch.”

Now the case is headed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The article further reports:

Mr. Bush was challenged by the infant Mr. Zivotofsky?via his parents?not long after he was born. In the fight over whether the Supreme Court would take the case, Mrs. Clinton echoed Mr. Bush’s concerns, citing her department’s view that “any unilateral action by the United States that would signal, symbolically or concretely, that it recognizes that Jerusalem is a city that is located within the sovereign territory of Israel would critically compromise the ability of the United States to work with Israelis, Palestinians and others in the region to further the peace process.”

This is ridiculous. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It has been the capital of Israel since Bible times. The historic record is clear. Aside from that, since when does America have the right to divvy up another country’s capital city? Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky is not the only child of Americans in the position of having a birth certificate stating that he was born in Jerusalem without mentioning Israel. I think it’s time to stop playing silly games to placate terrorists and tell the truth. Israel has one tiny piece of land amid a sea of Arab countries. Arabs in Israel have more freedom and more economic success in Israel than they do in their own countries. The Arab countries around Israel have mistreated the Palestinians in order to use them as pawns in the war against Israel. We accomplish nothing by trying to placate the Arab countries around Israel. They will not be happy until Israel is destroyed. Until we realize that, all the negotiations in the world will accomplish nothing.

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ObamaCare Is Headed To The Supreme Court

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U.S. Supreme Court

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Heritage.org posted an article today about Obamacare and the recent decision by the 11th Circuit. On Monday the Department of Justice announced that it would not appeal the decision by the 11th Circuit, opening the way for Obamacare to go to the Supreme Court. However, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is appealing the portion of the panel’s decision that held that the unconstitutional individual mandate could be severed from the Obamacare legislation.

The Washington Examiner posted a story yesterday about the progress of the lawsuits regarding Obamacare.

The article at the Washington Examiner states:

Obamacare’s fate will almost certainly be decided by the Supreme Court in 2012, either in June or shortly after November’s election. And neither conservatives nor President Obama can be sure whether they want a decision before or after the election.

The question that comes to mind here is why the Obama Administration isn’t working to slow down Obamacare’s trip to the Supreme Court. The longer it takes the Supreme Court to hear Obamacare, the more of Obamacare will already have been put in place and it will be harder to undo. The decision in the 11th Circuit is not totally negative for the Obama Administration–severing the individual mandate works for the Obama Administration–if the rest of the law stands, then they are still ahead of the game. The individual mandate was the part of the law most likely to be declared unconstitutional.

I have a few other ideas. I believe as this case moves forward, there will be an attempt to force Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from the case at the Supreme Court. There is also the fact that Elena Kagan worked on the Obamacare legislation while she was at the White House and should recuse herself from the case (I doubt that she will do that voluntarily). Obamacare at the Supreme Court is not a slam-dunk for either side, and there is a risk that the case could go either way. The other aspect of this is that if Obamacare is found unconstitutional, the Obama campaign will attempt to use its defeat as a campaign issue. Because Obamacare is overwhelmingly unpopular, I am not sure how effective it will be as a campaign issue.

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The Attack On Clarence Thomas Begins

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Clarence Thomas, an alumnus of Holy Cross, for...

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Today’s New York Post posted an article by Michael Barone about the attack piece on Clarence Thomas  written by Jeffrey Toobin and publiished in the New Yorker Magazine.  Clarence Thomas has been on the Supreme Court since 1991, so why the sudden attack? Simple–Obamacare.

The interesting part of the article in the New Yorker Magazine is the fact that Jeffrey Toobin, while criticizing Justice Thomas, seems to have a lot of respect for him as a judge. The problem is simple–Justice Thomas believes in the Constitution as it was written. He makes his decisions based on the Constitution. There is no way that the idea of requiring American citizens to buy a product is in the Constitution.

The article in the New York Post concludes:

Congress has never before passed and the court has never upheld a law requiring individuals to buy a commercial product, as ObamaCare does. On this, the Obama Democrats, not Clarence Thomas or judges following his lead, are the ones sweeping aside precedent.

And that is why, as the date for the Supreme Court to begin its next session nears, the attacks on Clarence Thomas will continue and increase. If Justice Thomas cannot be forced to recuse himself from the case on Obamacare, there is a good chance that Obamacare will be overturned. If Obamacare is not overturned, the nightmare for American healthcare is only beginning.

 

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