Posted on 03/27/2012 1:02:34 PM PDT by Semper911
CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin said that it was a rough day for the Obama administration, as lawyers worked to defend the Obamacare's individual mandate.
"This was a train wreck for the Obama administration," Tobin said. "This law looks like it's going to be struck down. I'm telling you, all of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong."
Tobin said that U.S. Solicitor General David Verrilli was woefully unprepared in his defense.
"I don't know why he had a bad day, he is a good lawyer, he was a perfectly fine lawyer in the really sort of tangential argument yesterday. He was not ready for the answers for the conservative justices," he said.
"If I had to bet today I would bet that this court is going to strike down the individual mandate." he said.
Tobin was not alone in his analysis. NBC's Justice corespondent Pete Williams was also skeptical.
"It would seem at this point in the process that I think it's very doubtful that the court is going to find the health care law constitutional," he said, "I don't see five votes to find the law constitutional."
(Excerpt) Read more at campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com ...
Justice John Roberts: ‘‘Can the government require you to buy a cell phone because that would facilitate responding when you need emergency services?’’
Justice Antonin Scalia: ‘‘The federal government is not supposed to be a government that has all powers; it’s supposed to be a government of limited powers. And that’s what all this questioning has been about. What is left? If the government can do this, what else can it not do?”
Justice Anthony Kennedy: “The government is saying that the federal government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act. And that is different from what we have in previous cases, and that changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in the very fundamental way.”
The fate of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul was cast into deeper jeopardy Tuesday as the Supreme Court’s conservative justices sharply and repeatedly questioned its core requirement that virtually every American carry insurance. The court will now take up whether any remnant of the historic law can survive if that linchpin fails.
The justices’ questions in Tuesday’s hearing carried deeply serious implications but were sometimes flavored with fanciful suggestions. If the government can force people to buy health insurance, justices wanted to know, can it require people to buy burial insurance? Cellphones? Broccoli?
“Scouts blog has a different take on today’s arguments. Kennedy explored both sides of the issue and seemed to find merit in some of the governments arguments”
If you read the transcript it would appear that way. But if you go back and listen to the argument, Kennedy was actually being caustic in his questioning at the point in the written transcript where he appeared to be sympathetic to the government’s position.
Let’s say in November 2012 conservatives win the White House, a super majority in the Senate, and a larger majority in the US House. This group of temporary politicians decide that EVERY CITIZEN MUST BUY A GUN. They pass (ram) this law through and the conservative President signs it into law.
New York, California, Massachusetts, and Maine file suits claiming the law is unconstitutional.
How would Kagan, Bryer, Sotomeyer, and what’s his name rule if brought up before SCOTUS?
CNN’s just trying to set up another “come back kid” story. I listened to the arguments today and made it 5-4 with Kennedy being the swing vote and he had his left turn signal on for much of the day. I think our “journalists” are just going for sensation, it was always going to be a close call and it still appears to be.
I listened to the whole thing, and concur with them. It’ll be a squeaker.
The very fact that communist medical care is being debated in the United States Supreme Court illustrates that this formerly free republican society has pushed passed its peak and is in terminal decline.
Obama, Biden, Reid, and Pelosi, along with Sebilius, should be immediately sequestered and held in prison without bail, on charges of violation of their oaths of office, while under impeachment and sentencing procedures for this fraud, a very costly fraud, perpetuated on the American people.
What is there to debate in court? The Obamacare tax ripoff is ipso facto unconstitutional in every aspect. Summary judgement should be issued and the whole idiocy ended except for the extended imprisonment or other punishment of the seditious and traitorous behavior of the nations highest officers.
Been done - see the rural electrification act, eg. Folks in cities were forced to pay the cost of running electric wire to farms.
I listened today. Roberts seemed weaker than Kennedy on this.
Events like today are for show in my opinion; something to make it seem like “the system works”. The GOP establishment has demonstrated more than once how this game is played.
And he probably stayed in a Holiday Express!!
Who knows, they might start telling you what you must buy for your lunch. Oh wait, they are already doing that. My bad.
Is it just me? I break out in cold sweats when I hear Breyer or Ginsberg speak. They think the government can do anything it wants and it’s okay. Last one I remember “Government could require us to buy phones.” What a nightmare!
“I can’t believe they’re throwing in the towel this easily.”
Must be a “Trojan” Towel then.
I remember when belittling supreme court justices at State of the union events was in style ... my how time flies.
7. Removing Michelle Obamas fat azz from the white house.
Better a train wreck *before* it takes the economy over a cliff, I always say.
Better a train wreck *before* it takes the economy over a cliff, I always say.
The plan B for the Left, if there is severability, is to expand the void via Medicaid. Medicaid will reach well into the the middle class. The states will be key in this fight. We could have highly socialized medicine states that fail compared to more enlightened states with robust private health care markets. We are seeing a similar development with right to work states vs union states.
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