Obama v. SCOTUS



“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.”

— Barack Obama, on the constitutional challenge to his health-care law, April 2


“Unprecedented”? Judicial review has been the centerpiece of the American constitutional system since Marbury v. Madison in 1803. “Strong majority”? The House has 435 members. In March 2010, Democrats held a 75-seat majority. Obamacare passed by seven votes.

In his next-day walk back, the president implied that he was merely talking about the normal “restraint and deference” the courts owe the legislative branch. This concern would be touching if it weren’t coming from the leader of a party so deeply devoted to the ultimate judicial usurpation — Roe v. Wade, which struck down the abortion laws of 46 states — that fealty to it is the party’s litmus test for service on the Supreme Court.

With Obamacare remaking one-sixth of the economy, it would be unusual for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation so broad and sweeping. On the other hand, it is far more unusual to pass such a fundamentally transformative law on such a narrow, partisan basis.

Obamacare passed the Congress without a single vote from the opposition party — in contradistinction to Social Security, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, similarly grand legislation, all of which enjoyed substantial bipartisan support. In the Senate, moreover, Obamacare squeaked by through a parliamentary maneuver called reconciliation that was never intended for anything so sweeping. The fundamental deviation from custom and practice is not the legal challenge to Obamacare but the very manner of its enactment.

The president’s preemptive attack on the court was in direct reaction to Obamacare’s three days of oral argument. It was a shock. After years of contemptuously dismissing the very idea of a legal challenge, Democrats suddenly realized there actually is a serious constitutional argument to be made against Obamacare — and they are losing it.

Here were highly sophisticated conservative thinkers — lawyers and justices — making the case for limited government, and liberals weren’t even prepared for the obvious constitutional question: If Congress can force the individual into a private contract by authority of the commerce clause, what can it not force the individual to do? Without a limiting principle, the central premise of our constitutional system — a government of enumerated powers — evaporates. What, then, is the limiting principle?

Liberals were quick to blame the administration’s bumbling solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, for blowing the answer. But Clarence Darrow couldn’t have given it. There is none.

Justice Stephen Breyer tried to rescue the hapless Verrilli by suggesting that by virtue of being born, one enters into the “market for health care.” To which plaintiffs’ lawyer Michael Carvin devastatingly replied: If birth means entering the market, Congress is omnipotent, authorized by the commerce clause to regulate “every human activity from cradle to grave.”

Q.E.D.

Having lost the argument, what to do? Bully. The New York Times loftily warned the Supreme Court that it would forfeit its legitimacy if it ruled against Obamacare because with the “five Republican-appointed justices supporting the challenge led by 26 Republican governors, the court will mark itself as driven by politics.”

Really? The administration’s case for the constitutionality of Obamacare was so thoroughly demolished in oral argument that one liberal observer called it “a train wreck.” It is perfectly natural, therefore, that a majority of the court should side with the argument that had so clearly prevailed on its merits. That’s not partisanship. That’s logic. Partisanship is four Democrat-appointed justices giving lock-step support to a law passed by a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president — after the case for its constitutionality had been reduced to rubble.

Democrats are reeling. Obama was so taken aback, he hasn’t even drawn up contingency plans should his cherished reform be struck down. Liberals still cannot grasp what’s happened — the mild revival of constitutionalism in a country they’ve grown so used to ordering about regardless. When asked about Obamacare’s constitutionality, Nancy Pelosi famously replied: “Are you serious?” She was genuinely puzzled.

As was Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.). As Michael Barone notes, when Hare was similarly challenged at a 2010 town hall, he replied: “I don’t worry about the Constitution.” Hare is now retired, having been shortly thereafter defeated for reelection by the more constitutionally attuned owner of an East Moline pizza shop.

April 5th, Krauthammer

No reason to even read it, as you, Illy, and Krauthammer, too, both know you are making an argument that has nothing to do with what the President said, or why he said it.

He wasn't talking to the SCOTUS, he was using the term "activist judge" on purpose to highlight the rampant hypocrisy on the right who calls every judge an "activist judge who usurps all of American and all Americans" whenever they do something they don't like.

'Course, dimwits like Krauthammer, Limpbaugh, Hannity, Hankster, and now you, who both know that very well, continue to spout the bullschit line anyway.

Fish on...

Todd

Proud of you odd. I expected worse, you were only mildly insulting.
Hope you are well. Too bad you cannot learn from your malodorous
mindset. But then you are mentally damaged beyond learning I susnpect.
carry on.

You and Krauthammer can just talk back and forth between yourselves...no one else is listening.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. I am well, thanks

Rock, meet Hard Place.

I just came in from working outside and will return there momentarily...eating first, tho.

Yes, He did say that (He as in capitalized like God). Just like He admonished the SCOTUS publicly before. And it won't be missed by those He directed His remarks towards, i'm sure.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the attempted defense and downright head-hiding-in-the-sand by his didicated minions (look that word up......nah, never mind, I'll do it for you)

"Definition of MINION. 1: a servile dependent, follower, or underling"
from www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/minion

So man minion-up! The truth is just that....regardless where it comes from.

It hurts, I know......but you can do it.

edit: missed a capital "H" (difficult for me to even pretend to worship false idols)

Todd can read? I didn't realize he got input that way. You either,
for that matter.

Been in the garden this AM. Too wet to work but all my seed
starts have germinated. Transferred them to 3 inch peat pots 3
days ago and their lookin' good.

Hope you've quit the smoking.

Slab...yes he did say that... no one is saying he didn't.

What takes a bit of actual thought (more than "I think I'll see what Krauthammer thinks) is who his audience was, who he was actually talking to.

It wasn't the SCOTUS, it was the hypocritical right wing dipshits that always call federal judges "activist judges" whenever they dump their unConstitutional laws that they pass...and use the exact same rhetoric that Obama was throwing back at them the other day.

I know that subtlety and irony are not very easy concepts for right wingers to grasp, but I bet even you guys can grasp it on this one.

I know Krauthammer can, and I know Hankster can, too...they're just both being dishonest, on purpose.

Fish on...

Todd

In other words, you are saying thay both have legal educations. Perhaps
even members of the Bar. Oh My.

First the lawyers.

Yeah, he should STFU.

Then again, so should you.

I see that Senator Grassley used Pres. Obama's style to call some constitutional law professors stupid, or is he saying the American people aren't stupid.


Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, employing the unique writing style he uses on Twitter, sent out this message yesterday: "Constituents askd why i am not outraged at PresO attack on supreme court independence. Bcause Am ppl r not stupid as this x prof of con law."