Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Did the Supreme Court Tip its Hand on ObamaCare?
American Thinker ^ | June 23, 2011 | Frank Miniter

Posted on 06/22/2011 11:51:08 PM PDT by neverdem

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-45 next last
To: neverdem

I’m betting on a 5-4 decision that its unconstitutional. The final nail in Barry’s coffin.


21 posted on 06/23/2011 5:45:28 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CharacterCounts

Yes, and the AG has already shown that “his people” and other protected groups will get preferential treatment.

There is no equal protection under the law here anymore. It goes form the top down, and bottom up.

Nothing will fix this except revolution, civil war, or peaceful secession.


22 posted on 06/23/2011 6:10:30 AM PDT by MikeSteelBe ( "Failure to speak out against evil is evil itself" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: piytar
(1) The general legal consensus is no, it can't with respect to "fundamental rights." Thanks to the last two big SCOTUS cases on the 2nd, the right to bear arms is a fundamental right.

Property rights are fundamental. The Endangered Species Act supposedly derives its authority to curtail private property rights without compensation by treaty.

(2) This case ruled that the 10th protected an American from a law passed under the auspices of the "1993 Chemical Weapons Convention," a Senate ratified treaty. So no again.

Same problem. I wouldn't take away too much on this ruling, as this looks to me like a Court that can't keep its story straight, treating issues of Federalism in a manner similar to "selective incorporation." That the author treats Wickard v. Filburn as anything less than an abomination shows how dangerously far we've slid as regards the latitude of the court.

23 posted on 06/23/2011 7:20:35 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (GunWalker: Arming "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well funded")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: piytar

What, then, is your opinion on the UN Rights of the Child treaty?

Could it override the constitutions of states and take away parental rights?

Michael Farris strongly believes so.


24 posted on 06/23/2011 7:23:25 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Tom D.
That bodes very ill for Obamacare

As if the Supremes will do anything other than "evade" yet another issue with Hussein. We're stuck with the usurper and every decree he passes down.

25 posted on 06/23/2011 7:46:16 AM PDT by bgill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Carry_Okie

Property rights are fundamental. Unfortunately, they have been so eroded by the left over the past few decades that they are no longer treated that way.

This ruling might be a wedge that can be used to start to reclaim them.

Because of the recent 2nd Amendment cases, those rights are now on firmer ground with the SCOTUS.


26 posted on 06/23/2011 8:45:36 AM PDT by piytar (Obama's Depression. Say it early, say it often. Why? Because it's TRUE.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen
I think the SCOTUS is going to be moving towards a Constitutionalist “revival” period. Of course, in the end, as some power is returned to States where it belongs, States are beginning to compete with each other for citizens and businesses like never before due to modern mobility.

The only way I see that happening is for Sotomayor and Kagan to be dismissed from the SCOTUS and the only way that will happen is to prove that Obama was not eligible to nominate them.

27 posted on 06/23/2011 8:59:28 AM PDT by liberalh8ter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: piytar
Property rights are fundamental. Unfortunately, they have been so eroded by the left over the past few decades that they are no longer treated that way.

Correct. Our system of law has degenerated into situational reality. There is no longer anything consistent about it.

This ruling might be a wedge that can be used to start to reclaim them.

One can only hope so. If the Bamster gets another appointment however, that may be all she wrote.

28 posted on 06/23/2011 9:22:10 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (GunWalker: Arming "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well funded")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: MrB

It shouldn’t, but parental rights have been eroded as much as property rights to the point that neither are treated as fundamental rights anymore, so it might. Sigh.


29 posted on 06/23/2011 9:48:03 AM PDT by piytar (Obama's Depression. Say it early, say it often. Why? Because it's TRUE.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: liberalh8ter

The SCOTUS can return to Constitutionalism any time it wants to; it is not obligated Constitutionally to maintain stare decisis on any particular case that it decides.

My point in post #10 was that Bond v. United States appears to be, to this humble poster, a trial balloon of sorts, where SCOTUS has ruled - unanimously - the following:

“Held: Bond has standing to challenge the federal statute on grounds that the measure interferes with the powers reserved to States”

Now of course the obamacare situation is not identical, but this ruling in it’s unanimity signals a willingness to entertain the standing of citizens in cases hinging upon the Constitutionality of laws, as opposed to the wont of lower courts to deny such standing exists. While SCOTUS may not want to hear a case yet on eligibility, my theory is that the economic disaster that is unfolding is cause for concern amongst all of our SC Justices, liberal and conservative alike - and it may well be that Bond signals that all current SC Justices are anxious to do what they can to cause the wholesale cancellation of the financial Hindenburg that is obamacare. Given the state of the finances of the Federal government, only partisans seeking to destroy free enterprise in America and the truly idiotic fail to admit that obamacare, if implemented on top of the mess America is in, would cause a financial catastrophe, the likes of which could threaten the stability and viability of the government.


30 posted on 06/23/2011 9:59:19 AM PDT by PieterCasparzen (PC's Tavern...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen
But Kagan was originally charged with assigning the first defender of Obamacare for Obama (conflict). She didn't recuse herself from deciding if SCOTUS would hear the appeal of Vinson's verdict. I would think if the unanimity of the Bond decision was a signal of SCOTUS reverting to Constitutionality rather than liberal interpretation, it would have been reflected in the prior case with Kagan’s recusal or at the very least, the other justices questioning her impartiality.
31 posted on 06/23/2011 10:14:53 AM PDT by liberalh8ter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: liberalh8ter

Methinks the iceberg of disaster is closer now than when Kagan first arrived.

I think DC power insiders like SCOTUS are starting to put two and two together. Think about what their personal investment advisors are telling them - basically America is toast.

They also are aware of the quiet uproar of conservative Constitutionalists - millions of people.

If obamacare comes before them for a ruling on Constitutionality and they beat the dead horse of the commerce clause - what if the economy completely collapses in the next few years and there is a complete breakdown ? Do they want to be the ones who forced trillions in additional government deficits by forcing obamacare on citizens - in complete disregard of the Constitution ? I think perhaps they will come up with some flowery language to perhaps cause obamacare to be stopped, which would simply put healthcare back where it was - and remove SCOTUS as being blameworthy for destroying the nation.

The bernank is like a deer in the headlights, the Fed will probably go bye-byes. Not everyone, but some in DC I think are finally starting to think that the train wreck is real.

I don’t know, it’s IMHO...


32 posted on 06/23/2011 10:37:57 AM PDT by PieterCasparzen (PC's Tavern...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: AndyTheBear

I agree that the wheat case ruling was absurd, but at least it was prohibiting the farmer from growing wheat, not necessarily forcing him to buy the wheat. Could the farmer, instead have grown corn to feed his chickens, which would be more reasonable anyway?

I’ve never really heard of feeding wheat to chickens, but then I’ve never raised any chickens, either.


33 posted on 06/23/2011 11:04:00 AM PDT by Eva
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Recovering_Democrat
Kennedy was also, however, one of the crucial swing votes in nullifying Texas’ law against sodomy, IIRC.

He wrote the opinion of the Court in Lawrence vs. Texas (2003). He didn't worry too much about the Tenth Amendment or stare decisis then. <snort!>

Just another chuckle-headed, swing-like-a-gate DC party-hound, AFAIC. He also let Laurence Tribe lobby him for three and a half hours in a Vienna cafe on the eve of the Court's vote on Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, and voted with the liberals then. He could have helped strike down Roe vs. Wade, and in Lawrence he had Byron White's opinion and Chief Justice Burger's concurring opinion before him, scarcely 17 years old, upholding an identical Georgia law, but wrote his lawbreaking squib de novo, as if Bowers vs. Hardwick had never existed, to please the deviant conspirators and power-gays in Washington.

Slanted/perverted article on Bowers vs. Hardwick in Wiki, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowers_v._Hardwick#Aftermath.

Lastly, we have this comment of Laurence Tribe's, offered at the time of the Sotomayor nomination, handicapping Kennedy's future votes (he should know, having been a major traducer himself of Kennedy's votes in the past), documenting Kennedy as having been influenced by closet-case Associate Justice Souter:

... issues on which Kennedy will probably vote with Roberts despite Souter’s influence but on which I don’t regard Kennedy as a lost cause for the decade or so that he is likely to remain on the Court. (Emphasis added.)

Link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Tribe.

(Further note on Tribe: He argued for the sodomites before SCOTUS in the Bowers vs. Hardwick case, in relief of Hardwick's original ACLU lawyer -- the case was an instance of barratry by the ACLU, which was scouting for cases to bring against states' sodomy laws -- and wrote an amicus brief for the ACLU in Lawrence, in which the appellant was represented by Lambda Legal, which had done the same in Texas, bringing Baker vs. Wade to a forum-shopped Carter appointee in 1981 before soliciting Lawrence's test [and offense, imho -- the whole offense, arrest, and court case was a setup charade: the person who called police was arrested, charged, and sentenced in a sidebar proceeding later, basically for temporizing with justice] 20 years later. Tribe continues to serve as a Harvard professor despite being reprimanded by the university for plagiarism in a campus scandal in 2004.)

34 posted on 06/23/2011 11:04:34 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus (Concealed carry is a pro-life position.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.")

On appeal, the 3rd Circuit then ruled that Bond lacked standing to challenge her conviction, finding that only states, not individuals, can bring challenges under the Tenth Amendment.

I guess the brilliant jurists on the 3rd Circus court STOPPED READING the 10th Amendment at the comma after the phrase "states respectively" and never saw the words "OR TO THE PEOPLE."
35 posted on 06/23/2011 12:30:06 PM PDT by VRWCmember
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jimfree

“Actually Kennedy was going libertarian in his opinion on the Texas sodomy law. That would bode well since Obamacare has touches both states rights and individual rights.”

True. But he wasn’t interpreting the constitution. He was joining the “make stuff up because I think it’s a good idea” crowd on the left.

That’s what makes him so unreliable. His judicial philosophy is the same as breyer, ginsberg, and the wise latina—smart, elite judges ought to be able to impose their morality on average people by pretending their morality is in the constitution. He differs with breyer et al on what the imposed result should be in some cases.

That’s why he is better than breyer in result but no different in judicial philosophy.


36 posted on 06/23/2011 4:18:29 PM PDT by ModelBreaker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Clintonfatigued; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; ...

Thanks Clintonfatigued.
Justice Kennedy's opinion in U.S. v. Bond showed he still believes the federal government is restricted by the enumerated powers as listed in the U.S. Constitution.
Or, maybe he just thought a total nutjob should be set free so she can continue her harassment of her victim.


37 posted on 06/23/2011 5:35:51 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Thanks neverdem! I'm late to the party but chores kept me away from my computinmachine all day.

I sent out a ping to an earlier THREAD alerting the 10th Amendment Division of this development. Tagged and bagged this thread however.

JMHO but I think Jug Ears had better fasten his seat belt; he's in for a rough ride.

38 posted on 06/23/2011 7:58:42 PM PDT by ForGod'sSake (You have only two choices: SUBMIT or RESIST with everything you've got!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
I'm no lawyer, but IIRC, a two thirds vote of the Senate, if they have a quorum, then they can override the Bill of Rights.

Many good articles re the Constitution vs treaties. A snip from THIS ARTICLE states it pretty clearly:

Clarification of a clause in the Constitution of the United States is in order here. Article VI, clause 2 declares that “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the Land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” It is the last clause that is misunderstood, even by attorneys. “... Constitution or Laws of any State ...” refers to the Constitutions of the several states, NOT the Constitution of the United States. The Founding Fathers were much too well informed to allow the state Constitutions to alter the United States Constitution. That would have been self defeating. The truth of the matter is that neither treaties nor state laws can supersede or alter the Constitution of the United States. Our national document is etched in stone. It is unfortunate that most Congress Persons do not read stone.
The complete article, which is worth a read, cites SCOTUS decisions essentially saying as much.
39 posted on 06/23/2011 8:41:30 PM PDT by ForGod'sSake (You have only two choices: SUBMIT or RESIST with everything you've got!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Eva
I just can't see any reasonable way to recover from that absurdity. The implication of letting such idiocy stand is to give the federal government any power it desires.

Consider: any human activity at all could effect one's needs. For example, if I jog I might have more need of a water bottle. Of coarse water bottle transactions within the store I might purchase it are part of a network of interconnected transactions which are a commerce that cross state lines.

Thus, if we accept such expansion of the interstate commerce clause that regulates a farmer growing crops for his own animals, then all human activity is covered by this clause...since no human activity is completely independent of interstate commerce. Mandating that I jog would encourage interstate commerce and help the economy...or conversely mandating I not jog might help lower the cost of water bottles. Either way an excuse can be dreamed up for the federal government to make any mandate of my behavior it wishes.

Obviously this is not just an unorthodox opinion the court let stand. It was in fact a blatant violation of any kind of valid reasoning. Thus, I simply can not respect the US Supreme Court unless and until it reforms itself, overturns such absurd rulings, and repudiates and rejects any that presided over them as being unfit to any profession that requires critical thought.

In the meantime, although clearly forcing somebody to buy something is crossing another line that ought never be crossed...based on past behavior, I do not have confidence that they will not bulldoze right over that line as well.

I really wish they were worthy of the respect that the office should have. But they are not. The US Supreme court has become a disgrace, and giving them respect at this point is an affront to the institution as it ought to have been, and I pray might one day be.

40 posted on 06/24/2011 2:02:07 AM PDT by AndyTheBear
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-45 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson