Posted on 03/28/2012 2:05:38 PM PDT by RobinMasters
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia humorously invoked the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishments, when discussing the Obamacare legislation during oral argument today at the Supreme Court.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?
(Laughter.)
JUSTICE SCALIA: And do you really expect the Court to do that? Or do you expect us to — to give this function to our law clerks?
Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?
MR. KNEEDLER: Well -
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
He has lost the Catholic vote. Women are no longer seeing him as a safety net but more of an outsider. The Black vote may be at 90+ percent but turnout will plummet. As far as the Hispanic vote goes, they have no reason to support him as he could care less. Just wait until every extra penny you have to travel sets into the voter box.
LOL. Lots of skeletons remaining.
I don’t see how they can find the mandate constitutional. It simply isn’t a program based on Congress’ taxing authority.
What it boils down to is an order. We are ordered to go out and take an affirmative action. Congress has had the authority to outlaw things they say we cannot do, robbing banks, murder, etc. It has the authority to regulate things that we do do. But, I simply can’t think of any Constitutional power it has to order us to take a particular action.
They write regulations, which are orders, for the military, but I don’t see that power against civilians, except as it concerns calling forth the militia. (Again the military).
To grant Congress the power to order behavior is an extremely dangerous precedent.
This attack on personal freedom is light-years worse than allowing agents to listen to possible terrorist phone calls, and that had the national media up in arms.
I'm praying there are 5 judges that see this, but I recognize that there are 4 libs that think they are there to create policy. I'm worried that Kennedy, or even Roberts, may be so cautious that they want to be the "enlightened moderate" and will allow the mandate. A bold move would be to throw out the entire piece of garbage, but that really hasn't been their history.
I know most observers think getting rid of the mandate alone would be a big victory, but I think it wouldn't be. A re-elected obama would veto any bills getting rid of the rest of the law and without voiding the entire law health insurance companies will go out of business. I don't see Romney winning so a 2nd term for obama has to be part of the equation.
I don't know about others, but my business plans are currently on hold until I see how all this plays out. My long term planning is in trying to identify the best foreign locations for health care and what the real estate markets are in those areas.
I wouldn't be so sure. They didn't budge an inch on requiring religious institutions to do things that violate their beliefs. It seems to me that they must have some internal polling that tells them they won't get hurt by this with Roman Catholics.
Women are no longer seeing him as a safety net but more of an outsider.
Married women and especially married women with children see this, but marriage rates are in decline as are birth rates. Unmarried women are big supporters of a "protective daddy state".
As far as the Hispanic vote goes, they have no reason to support him as he could care less.
This group is a great example of how conservatives shoot themselves in the foot by not differentiating between politics and policy. The heated response to illegal immigration and the TX Dream Act when Perry was running only served to reinforce the misguided notion that Pubs hate Hispanics, which drives them back to the Rats. The Pubs are right on policy but allow themselves to be manipulated into a weak position in public opinion, politics.
That’s funny, but I can’t laugh. It’s my (and your) execution.
There ought to be a constitutional amendment capping any bill to 30 (or some other arbitrary number) pages or less with the clear understanding that any bill longer than that is automatically unconstitutional.
The Obamacare bill was replete (I think it was 87 places) with phrases such as “the Secretary [of HHS] will determine ...” The Obamacrats have already pumped out over 10,000 pages of regulations to implement Obamacare, and they are just getting started.
Last year, the Federal Register was increased by over 80,000 pages. It isn’t just the laws - it is the regulations. And that is just at the federal level.
“I was elected to lead, not to read.” - “President” Schwarzenegger
The POS Dems that voted to pass it knew it is/was a disaster for them as proved in 2010.
So, what does the RINO establishment do?
They support Mitt Romney!
How FREAKIN' stupid can they be?
Catholics, women, and Hispanics.
Catholics have gone with republicans when republicans were defense republicans. Reagan bridged that gap real well because he both spoke the working man language and he was a defense republican. He got union job catholics because they were more John Kennedy than Teddy Kennedy.
That’s why the Obama slip with the Russian president was so important.
Middle class voters, in general, also see the gasoline prices, so pounding the pipeline and drilling issues are important.
Women truly are security motivated. That’s another reason that the Medvedev slip was important on top of the bad decisions regarding our missile defense system. Republicans could run a kind of reverse daisy add on Obama and get everyone worried about missiles again.
Hispanics will remember someone like Romney and his ignorant rejection of them during Romney’s Rick Perry attacks. The republicans best hope with Hispanics is the price of gasoline and other pocket book issues.
I think showing that Obama wantonly permitted Mexicans to be mowed down via “Fast and Furious” would hurt Obama with Hispanics, too. Then there are the traditional Catholic Hispanics who won’t accept a frontal attack on their church as long as pocket book issue and also clear to them.
Romney’s a terrible choice for the Republicans. The only one in which he isn’t “Richie Rich” or “Weird Anti-Catholic Religion” is the national defense issue.
Great point.
Romney’s a terrible choice for the Republicans. The only one in which he isn’t “Richie Rich” or “Weird Anti-Catholic Religion” is the national defense issue.
I agree. Also, he's not trustworthy or particularly likeable. As a manager I think he would do a great job running things, but he has no core values so as a leader he fails because he has no direction. Unfortunately, I see obama winning reelection so my belief is the Republic rests in the SCOTUS hands. If obamacare survives we are going to be governed by a powerful bureaucracy and mobs of freeloaders. IOW, the Republic dies and is replaced by a democracy.
The republican party as we know it is dead if Romney gets the nod.
That is why we must find or found a conservative party with gravitas and work to make it a force in American politics.
Beginning such an effort would not be wasting one’s vote.
If the US goes socialist, then there is no place in any other country to hide.
Where have you been? the Democrat party of today is the communist party.
The Obamacare bill was replete (I think it was 87 places) with phrases such as “the Secretary [of HHS] will determine ...” The Obamacrats have already pumped out over 10,000 pages of regulations to implement Obamacare, and they are just getting started.
Sure it would. If the amendment were in place the law would be "unconstitutional on arrival" and never get out of committee much less onto the floor for ratification. Without a law the bureaucrats would have no legitimate directive to implement 10,000 pages of legislation. If the current law gets squashed by the Supreme Court, who will pay any attention to any of the additional regulations pertaining to it? If the current law gets squashed the Secretary of HHS will not have the legal ability to "determine..." anything pertaining to a law that is unconstitutional
I disagree.
Central America is going through a boom and has become a good place to do business. The Pacific rim has several nations that still have a respect for property rights and the rule of law. Also, Malta in the Mediterranean is consider stable. I think it is a mistake to believe that if the USA becomes a socialist state (we are well on that road already) that other countries won't emerge as great locations for entrepreneurs.
As goes the US, so goes the countries on this planet that depend on our defense department to make it possible for them them ignore autocratic states breathing down their necks.
Conservatives tend not to be good at the politics of gaining control. The more conservative members backed by the Tea Party are running into redistricting problems and the "moderates" are always supported in the media.
FWIW, I don't think it will matter a heck of a lot who's in control if the SCOTUS rules we are property of the State to be ruled over by a faceless bureaucracy (obamacare). Also, if this is implemented you can bet that the war on free enterprise and wealth will ramp up dramatically.
I’ll leave it to establishment conservatives to take over the GOP-establishment.
I’m pretty well convinced they’ve proven they aren’t taking over anything more than the channel changer on their living room TV.
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