Posted on 04/03/2012 6:39:48 AM PDT by upchuck
Dear Mr. President,
Supposedly, you are some sort of constitutional scholar. At the very least, you can read, you can write, and despite being merely some sort of guest lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, you once famously referred to yourself as a “Constitutional Law professor.”
Ringing a bell so far, Mr. President? Great.
While my Juris Doctor is from the Rutgers School of Law in Camden, New Jersey, and while Rutgers-Camden is hardly Harvard Law School, within the first three days of Constitutional Law class those who did not already know of and understand perhaps the single most important decision in the history of the United States Supreme Court were introduced to Marbury v. Madison.
In Marbury, the United States Supreme Court held that federal courts across our nation not only have the authority, but also the duty, to review the constitutionality of acts of Congress–including statutes and treaties–and to designate as void those acts of Congress which countermand the United States Constitution. The term you’re searching for between those flappy ears of yours, Mr. President, is “judicial review.” And, while it has been nearly two years since I opened up a Constitutional Law book and can now debate divorce and family law in South Carolina better than I can the Constitution, I recall enough from law school and bar exam study to know that the doctrine of “judicial review” is now settled law.
In other words, since the landmark Marbury decision came down from the Court you belittle as “unelected” in 1803, because of “judicial review,” federal courts in the United States of America have the power–and duty–to review laws passed by Congress, decide whether or not those laws either comport with our Constitution or countermand it, and either uphold those laws that pass constitutional muster or declare void those laws that do not.
Not a difficult concept, Mr. President. Not a difficult concept for a first-year law student at Rutgers-Camden, and certainly not a difficult concept for a Harvard Law grad who lectured on Constitutional Law at University of Chicago Law School and later went on to deceive a nation into crowning him president of the United States. This ain’t race-baiting or class warfare, Mr. President, but Marbury and judicial review should nonetheless certainly be in your wheelhouse.
So, what’s the problem? Earlier today, according to Fox News and other sources, this apparently happened:
President Obama, employing his strongest language to date on the Supreme Court review of the federal health care overhaul, cautioned the court Monday against overturning the law — while repeatedly saying he’s “confident” it will be upheld.
The president spoke at length about the case at a joint press conference with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. The president, adopting what he described as the language of conservatives who fret about judicial activism, questioned how an “unelected group of people” could overturn a law approved by Congress.
“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,” Obama said.
Those statements are so indicative of ignorance of not only Constitutional Law but basic civics that I don’t even know where to begin.
First, even a second-grader understand[s] that the the United States Government is split into three separate branches in order to insulate one from another and provide checks and balances for each. While it is easy to understand how a totalitarian like yourself would have trouble distinguishing the lines between the various branches; after all, you have an established penchant for making illegitimate recess appointments and facilitating regulatory and other extra-legislative mechanisms designed to eschew and usurp the traditional role of the Legislative Branch — is it no surprise that you are utterly incapable of understanding why Justices of the United States Supreme Court are indeed unelected?
Second, that you would preemptively describe as “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” the prospective decision by the Supreme Court that your signature piece of legislation is unconstitutional and therefore void shows that your ignorance is surpassed only by your myopic inability to see past your political ideology and goals. According to the Congressional Research Service’s The Constitution of the United States, Analysis and Interpretation (the 2008 supplement, pages 163-164, in case you’re looking), as of 2010 the United States Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional and therefore void a whopping 163 acts of Congress. You do know what “unprecedented” means, right? The Supreme Court overturning ObamaCare would hardly be “unprecedented” — perhaps it could be “unprecedented, unless you count those previous 163 precedents.”
Want to know what is “unprecedented,” Mr. President? Congress forcing free Americans into private contracts and penalizing those who disobey. That’s unprecedented.
At this point, Mr. President, just give up. Please. Every time you denigrate the Court and its Justices, who have more legal knowledge in their smallest toenail than you have in your entire body, you look more and more like the dullard that you apparently truly are. No wonder you don’t want to release your transcripts — any undergraduate student who fails to understand the most basic concept of Separation of Powers and any law student that fails to understand the settled doctrine of judicial review probably did not have marks worthy of tacking on the refrigerator door.
I understand that, ideologically, your signature piece of health care legislation is the perfect progressive fix. I understand how it works. I understand how it slowly but surely interferes with insurers’ ability to assess risk and thus slowly but surely facilitates an increase in premium costs, therefore driving more and more people to clamor for a government fix. It’s a brilliant political maneuver.
But it’s also unconstitutional.
And when the Justices of the United States Supreme Court tell you as much mere weeks before November’s election, it will not be because they are “unelected,” nor will it be because they somehow don’t understand the legislation. The law simply runs afoul of the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, and no amount of “strong majority of a democratically elected Congress” will change that.
Wave the white flag, Mr. President. Or, preferably, you can continue to make a fool of yourself. In my Trial Advocacy class at Rutgers-Camden, after all, we were taught how do deal with opposing counsel who was floundering in front of a judge or jury: sit tight, smile, and just let it happen.
Now, Rutgers-Camden is a fine school, but it sure ain’t Harvard. Nevertheless, I’m the one who is sitting tight and smiling.
Good luck with your re-election.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey M. Schreiber, Esq.
Maybe his constituency will buy the crap he was selling, but anyone with a high school education won't.
And another point regarding 0bama’s statement - a law is not judged on a sliding scale by how strong the majority that passed it was. Not that ‘0bamacare’ was either bipartisan or passed by a large majority in the first place; but even assuming it was - an Unconstitutional law is not given special deference because it was passed by a larger majority of Congress.
I smell a dictatorship brewing and impending cancellation of the Constitution.
Currently the power granted Congress to regulate commerce between the states is viewed as the power to regulate commerce between the states, commerce within a state that may have an effect upon interstate commerce, or any activity that may have an effect upon interstate commerce.
The SCOTUS is now going to judge if this power to regulate commerce between the states is also the power to regulate NON-activity that may have an effect upon interstate commerce.
In other words, is there ANY limit WHATSOEVER on the power of Congress to regulate any activity or non-activity that has any effect whatsoever upon commerce between the states?
If our founders wanted Congress to have the power to regulate all commercial activity that could effect interstate commerce - including intrastate commerce - or non commerce - activity or inactivity; then why did they specify that the power ONLY covered commerce BETWEEN the states - not all commerce or activity that could effect commerce?
However, being obammy, he doesn't care. He's counting on our dumbed down electorate, the ones that are second, third, fourth generation welfare recipients to elect him again.
I'm afraid it just might happen that way.
They don't even have to prove it would have an effect. They just have to posit that it could potentially have an effect.
This is all based on Wickard v. Filburn, and they had no evidence at all that Roscoe Filburn had done anything to affect interestate commerce. If he hadn't grown that wheat, he could easily have bought it from one of his neighbors and not engaged in interstate commerce at all.
The whole stinking mess is as screwed up as a soup sandwich.
In the book “Left Behind,“ a snake-oil salesman named Carpathian brings the World to ruin.
Dictator Baby-Doc Barack is our Carpathian as he tries to bring America to ruin.
KEEP IT UP, Chuck!
I just put this in my email and sent it out for all to read.
May God make it go viral.
Thanks!
Ignorance and arrogance is a bad combination!
I hope this letter was sent to the President.
Thus we see that the current vision of the interstate commerce clause is NOT confined to “commerce between the states” - but any activity that might have an effect upon interstate commerce - including intrastate commerce.
So why did our founders indicate that the power was to regulate commerce “between the states” if they intended it to be the power to regulate ALL commerce - and all activity that could potentially have an effect on commerce - and now even NON-activity that could potentially have an effect upon commerce?
If the commerce clause is a ‘blank check’ of Federal power - then our founders did not give to us a government of limited and enumerated powers - but one of limitless and innumerable powers.
“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,” Obama said.
I think it was like two votes. What a douche bag.
The author should leave out the comment about the flappy ears. That will really send Obama over the edge.
A couple of thoughts, should the USSC overturn this law--
Will the President and Congress comply?
Will the GOP handle the decision correctly?
What will next year's SOTU speech be like, with Obama addressing both Congress and members of the USSC? I say he will handle it differently, depending on whether or not he's re-elected.
It needs to be sent everywhere else, for the populace to see, as well as to the house and senate members, both federal and state.
Unfortunately, most of Obama's constituency doesn't know there are three branches of government let alone that he is a co-equal.
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