I had not intended to post today,considering the world-class funk I’m in.Yet after yesterday my loyalty to you precludes my personal foibles.I plan to shut down my computer today and leave the television off for awhile.The kids bought me Edward Klein’s ‘The Amateur’ for Fathers Day and I’m going to take the time to read it.My thoughts are going to seem disjointed and subject to rambling because there are a lot of informational fragments I need to clear.
I’m listening yesterday and I hear:Obama won today,but this will really fire up the Tea Party.Fire up for what?Does that mean we’ll run into the voting place instead of walk?Most people already had their minds made up and what happened yesterday did nothing to change that.As expected,democrats behaved like spoiled children who stick their tongue out at you because they got away with something with no punishment.They’re sore winners and even sorer(sorer?) losers the few times it happens.
Looking at Chrissy’s post about SCOTUS nominees,it seems democrat presidents ALWAYS!! appoint reliably liberal judges.With Republican nominees its a crapshoot.The trouble with these stealth nominees is that conservatives are never pleasantly surprised.Ever.Such was the case with Benedict Roberts yesterday.
IT’S BUSH’S FAULT!!
There were rumors he switched his vote at the eleventh hour,perhaps due to bullying by The Usurper.In his opinion he stated that they were not responsible for the bloodthirsty pieces of liberal shit the ignorant masses vote into office.(OK,I took a little,well,a lot of poetic license).
Obamacare was rejected on the four points it was brought up on,so Roberts invented a fifth,about the mandate being a tax by himself,out of whole cloth.It is sad I will not live long enough to see us rid of the Jewish lesbian,the ‘Wise Latina’ and Benedict Roberts.We’re stuck with them for the next 20-30 years.
Give the democrats credit for doing their homework.They rejected every decent judge Bush nominated to the courts until they saw one they could turn.Remember Miguel Estrada?He languished for two years before he withdrew his own nomination,because the dems saw him as a potential nominee to SCOTUS.They were able to do this thanks to McShame and his ‘Gang of 14’ that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
I will continue my mindless diatribe in the comments.I have to refill my coffee cup anyway.
September 12, 2008: Candidate Obama makes a “firm pledge” not to raise taxes OF ANY KIND on ANYONE making less than $250,00 a year.
July 13, 2009: President Obama makes a “promise” that Americans $250,000 a year or less will not see any new taxes.
June 28, 2012: Supreme Court Declares Obamacare Constitutional as a Tax
Summary of The Heritage Foundation opinion on the Obamacare SCOTUS decision
Today’s Supreme Court decision on Obamacare has two significant constitutional silver linings, because the Court put some temporary brakes on our republic’s descent down an extra-constitutional slippery slope in which the federal government can control any aspect of our lives.
1) Five justices opined that the mandate, standing alone, cannot be justified under the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause. This is a serious blow to 90 percent of the legal academics and about 90 percent of Congress, since these have been the clauses used to justify so much of the modern administrative state.
2) Seven justices seemed to agree that some constitutional limitations were breached in the Medicaid expansion. This itself is a landmark ruling.
The American people and their elected representatives have a lot of work to do to repeal and replace the Obamacare statute. One political reality of today’s decision is that the Court essentially reads Obamacare as a massive tax increase, which falls most heavily on the middle class. Didn’t someone promise not to do that?
Summary of RedState opinion on ObamaCare SCOTUS decision
As you have no doubt heard by now, the Supreme Court largely upheld Obamacare with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority 5 to 4 decision. Even Justice Kennedy called for the whole law to be thrown out, but John Roberts saved it.
Having gone through the opinion, I am not going to beat up on John Roberts. I am disappointed, but I want to make a few points. John Roberts is playing at a different game than the rest of us. We’re on poker. He’s on chess.
First, I get the strong sense from a few anecdotal stories about Roberts over the past few months and the way he has written this opinion that he very, very much was concerned about keeping the Supreme Court above the partisan fray and damaging the reputation of the Court long term. It seems to me the left was smart to make a full frontal assault on the Court as it persuaded Roberts.
Second, in writing his opinion, Roberts forces everyone to deal with the issue as a political, not a legal issue. In the past twenty years, Republicans have punted a number of issues to the Supreme Court asking the Court to save us from ourselves. They can’t do that with Roberts. They tried with McCain-Feingold, which was originally upheld. This case is a timely reminder to the GOP that five votes are not a sure thing.
Third, while Roberts has expanded the taxation power, which I don’t really think is a massive expansion from what it was, Roberts has curtailed the commerce clause as an avenue for Congressional overreach. In so doing, he has affirmed the Democrats are massive taxers. In fact, I would argue that this may prevent future mandates in that no one is going to go around campaigning on new massive tax increases. On the upside, I guess we can tax the hell out of abortion now. Likewise, in a 7 to 2 decision, the Court shows a strong majority still recognize the concept of federalism and the restrains of Congress in forcing states to adhere to the whims of the federal government.
Fourth, in forcing us to deal with this politically, the Democrats are going to have a hard time running to November claiming the American people need to vote for them to preserve Obamacare. It remains deeply, deeply unpopular with the American people. If they want to make a vote for them a vote for keeping a massive tax increase, let them try.
Fifth, the decision totally removes a growing left-wing talking point that suddenly they must vote for Obama because of judges. The Supreme Court as a November issue for the left is gone. For the right? That sound you hear is the marching of libertarians into Camp Romney, with noses held, knowing that the libertarian and conservative coalitions must unite to defeat Obama and Obamacare.
Finally, while I am not down on John Roberts like many of you are today, I will be very down on Congressional Republicans if they do not now try to shut down the individual mandate. Force the Democrats on the record about the mandate. Defund Obamacare. This now, by necessity, is a political fight and the GOP sure as hell should fight.
60% of Americans agree with them on the issue. And guess what? The Democrats have been saying for a while that individual pieces of Obamacare are quite popular. With John Roberts’ opinion, the repeal fight takes place on GOP turf, not Democrat turf. The all or nothing repeal has always been better ground for the GOP and now John Roberts has forced everyone onto that ground.
It seems very, very clear to me in reviewing John Roberts’ decision that he is playing a much longer game than us and can afford to with a life tenure. And he probably just handed Mitt Romney the White House.
*A friend points out one other thing — go back to 2009. Olympia Snowe was the deciding vote to get Obamacare out of the Senate Committee. Had she voted no, we’d not be here now.
The individual mandate did not survive under the commerce clause,but survived as congress’ ability to tax.Other parts,including states mandated to cover more people under medicaid survived.Roberts voted along with the four leftist judges.
The Obama Administration has been spinning the Arizona SCOTUS case as a question of state vs. federal jurisdictions. But clearly it was never anything of the kind. Arizona never tried to make any state laws that contradicted federal laws. They tried to make state laws that would allow them to enforce federal laws that federal officials were not enforcing.
Now that the Supreme Court has unanimously supported Arizona’s right to do this, the Obama administration is doubling down on the whole not-enforcing-the-law thing. Basically, it’s a giant neener neener from the Obama White House to the Supreme Court, the governor, legislators and citizens of Arizona, all of whom overwhelming supported the law.
The Obama Administration treats North Korea and Iran better than this.
Folks,this is huge.The playing field just got a little evener.
Press release from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (AP story below):
Washington, DC (June 21, 2012) – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 today, siding with nonmember California state employees challenging a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) political fee charged to them without notice and opportunity to opt out.
The case concludes a prolonged legal challenge affecting some 36,000 California government employees initiated by eight California civil servants who filed a class-action lawsuit with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
In 2005, SEIU officials imposed a “special assessment” to raise money from all state employees forced to accept union representation as a job condition for a union political fund, regardless of their membership status. The fund was used to defeat four ballot proposals, including one that would have revoked public employee unions’ special privilege of using forced fees for politics unless an employee consents. Employees who refrained from union membership were given no chance to opt out of paying the SEIU’s political assessment.
Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, issued the following statement regarding today’s ruling:
“Today, the United States Supreme Court upheld workers’ First Amendment rights and struck down another union boss scheme to confiscate and spend state workers’ hard earned money for politics without their permission.
“Attorneys from the National Right to Work Foundation – the nation’s leading advocate for workers who suffer from the abuses of compulsory unionism – argued, and the Court agreed, that the workers should not be forced to subsidize union officials’ political spending, even for a short period of time.
“The Court closed a giant loophole that allowed union bosses to confiscate money from workers’ paychecks for political spending sprees – and sent a message to union officials, once again, that forced political conformity is unconstitutional.”
—–
(AP) Court: Union must give fee increase notice
By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that unions must give nonmembers an immediate chance to object to unexpected fee increases or special assessments that all workers are required to pay in closed-shop situations.
The court ruled for Dianne Knox and other nonmembers of the Service Employees International Union’s Local 1000, who wanted to object and opt out of a $12 million special assessment the union required from its California public sector members for political campaigning. Knox and others said the union did not give them a legally required notice that the increase was coming.
The union, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said the annual notice that the union gives was sufficient. The high court disagreed in a 7-2 judgment written by Justice Samuel Alito.
“When a public-sector union imposes a special assessment or dues increase, the union must provide a fresh … notice and may not exact any funds from nonmembers without their affirmative consent,” Alito said.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed with the judgment but wrote their own opinion. “When a public-sector union imposes a special assessment intended to fund solely political lobbying efforts, the First Amendment requires that the union provide non-members an opportunity to opt out of the contribution of funds,” Sotomayor wrote.
But Sotomayor and Ginsburg said they did not join in the majority opinion that the First Amendment requires an opt-in system for other circumstances like “the levying of a special assessment or dues increase.”
Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan dissented from the opinion. “If the union’s basic administrative system does not violate the Constitution, then how could its special assessment have done so?” Breyer said. But Breyer said he agreed with Sotomayor on the court’s decision to expand the decision beyond special political assessments. “No party has asked that we do so,” he said. “The matter has not been fully argued in this court or in the courts below,” said Breyer, who read his dissent aloud.
Alito said there is “no merit” to Breyer’s and Sotomayor’s complaints.
Since 1973, abortion has killed more than 17 million black babies.
Planned Parenthood performs about 25% of all abortions in the United States. Planned Parenthood clinics are most frequently sited in minority neighborhoods.
This is no accident. Planned Parenthood was founded by eugenicist Margaret Sanger with the specific intention of eliminating unwanted races from the human population.
She said Blacks, immigrants and the mentally and physically unfit should not be allowed to breed. She wrote,
“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
In 2009, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg clearly agreed, praising legal abortion for helping to curb “growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of” like those who qualified for Medicaid.
Margaret Sanger the Greatest Sin is Children [:53]
82% believe that if an employer pays for health insurance, the worker should be able to use that money and select an insurance product that meets his or her individual needs. If the plan they select costs less than the company plan, most believe the worker should get to keep the change.
76% think they should have the right to choose between expensive insurance plans with low deductibles and low-cost plans with higher deductibles.
62% think the health care law will cause companies to drop employee health insurance
61% see repeal of health care law as likely <- New High!
54% expect U.S. Supreme Court to overturn health care law
39% favor free health care for all Americans
35% are confident Medicare will pay all promised benefits
ObamaCare is doomed
Excerpts from A Commentary By Scott Rasmussen – March 30, 2012
There are three ways the health care law could meet its end.
The first, obviously, is the Supreme Court could declare some or all of it unconstitutional in June.
If it gets past that hurdle, the law also could be ended by Election 2012. If a Republican president is elected, the GOP will almost certainly also win control of the Senate and retain control of the House. While the details might take time, a Republican sweep in November would ultimately end the Obama experiment.
But even if the law survives the Supreme Court and the next election, the clock will be ticking.
Recent estimates suggest that the law would cause 11 million people to lose their employer-provided insurance and be forced onto a government-backed insurance plan. That’s a problem because 77 percent of those who now have insurance rate their current coverage as good or excellent.
Only 3 percent rate their coverage as poor. For most of the 11 million forced to change their insurance coverage then, it will be received as bad news and create a pool of vocally unhappy voters.
Additionally, the cost estimates for funding the program are likely to keep going up. Eighty-one percent of voters expect it to cost more than projected, and recent Congressional Budget Office estimates indicate voters are probably right.
But it’s not the narrow specifics and cost estimates that guarantee the ultimate demise of the president’s health care plan. It’s the fact that the law runs contrary to basic American values and perceptions.
This, then, is the third hurdle the law faces: Individual Americans recognize that they have more power as consumers than they do as voters. Their choices in a free market give them more control over the economic world than choosing one politician or another.
76% think they should have the right to choose between expensive insurance plans with low deductibles and low-cost plans with higher deductibles.
A similar majority believes everyone should be allowed to choose between expensive plans that cover just about every imaginable medical procedure and lower-cost plans that cover a smaller number of procedures.
All such choices would be banned under the current health care law. Americans want to be empowered as health care consumers.
82% believe that if an employer pays for health insurance, the worker should be able to use that money and select an insurance product that meets his or her individual needs. If the plan they select costs less than the company plan, most believe the worker should get to keep the change.
It’s not just the idea of making the choice that drives these numbers, it’s the belief held by most Americans that competition will do more than government regulation to reduce the cost of health care.
For something as fundamental as medical care, government policy must be consistent with deeply held American values. That’s why an approach that increases consumer choice has solid support and a plan that relies on mandates and trusting the government cannot survive.
In the video, Hare claims to have read the bill multiple time. He is challenged on that score with a little math. The bill is 2,700 pages long. Calculating a minute per page to read and comprehend, just one reading would take 45 hours. Multiple readings? Puh-leeze.
Hare also could not specify where in the Constitution it gave Congress the right to force people to buy products they don’t want. The Constitution is 6 pages long.
Even the Supreme Court justices who are considering its constitutionality are loathe to actually READ the whole of the so-called Affordable Care Act.
After a lawyer suggested the justices might go through the bill and decide which parts were constitutional, Justice Scalia said, “You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages? And do you really expect the court to do that? What happened to the Eight Amendment?” (The Eight Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.)
polination.blog 