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Chief Justice John Roberts said Wednesday what has long been known but seldom spoken. During the third and final day of Supreme Court hearings on whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is unconstitutional, Roberts said states have been compromising their sovereignty for decades through increased reliance on the federal government for money and accompanying directions on the governance of state affairs. "It seems to me that they have compromised their status as independent sovereigns because they are so dependent on what the federal government has done," the chief justice said during Wednesday's nearly three hours of...

Supreme Court – 03.28.12 An exchange between Justice Kagan and Lead Plaintiff Attorney Clement… Clement had barely finished his first sentence when Kagan immediately asked him why it was coercive for the federal government to give billions of dollars in additional aid to the states. “There are no matching funds requirements, there are no extraneous conditions attached to it, it’s just a boatload of federal money for you to take and spend on poor people’s healthcare,” she declared. “It doesn’t sound coercive to me, I have to tell you.” To that, Clement said the government’s money was still coercive because...

Video in Story... Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan defended the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare today by arguing that "It's just a boatload of federal money for you to take and spend" and concluding "It doesn't sound coercive to me." Kagan made her comments at today's Supreme Court hearing while questioning attorney Paul D. Clement who was presenting an oral argument on behalf of 26 states seeking to have the federal health care law declared unconstitutional: Mr. Clement: "Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the court. The constitutionality of the act’s massive expansion of Medicaid depends on the answer...

I was listening to the tape-delayed Obamacare oral arguments in the car Tuesday when I first heard Justice Breyer's Commerce Clause diatribe, and I meant to post something when I got home. But after making dinner and putting the kids to bed, I forgot.Until today, that is, when I read Jeffrey Anderson's account of "Breyer's Missteps." I think Jeffrey is far too generous to Breyer. Here is a fuller transcript of Breyer's outburst: I look back into history, and I think if we look back into history we see sometimes Congress can create commerce out of nothing. That's the...

The court’s conservatives sounded as though they had determined for themselves that the 2,700-page measure must be declared unconstitutional. "One way or another, Congress will have to revisit it in toto," said Justice Antonin Scalia. Agreeing, Justice Anthony Kennedy said it would be an "extreme proposition" to allow the various insurance regulations to stand after the mandate was struck down. Meanwhile, the court's liberal justices argued for restraint. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the court should do a "salvage job," not undertake a “wrecking operation." But she looked to be out-voted. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel...

Earnest Calls Government Mandate 'Personal Responsibility Clause' ... The Obama administration is now referring to Obamacare as a “bi-partisan bill” and calling the unpopular individual mandate “a Republican idea,” following three days of tough questioning by the Supreme Court. “The Affordable Care Act is a bipartisan plan and one that we think is constitutional,” Deputy White House press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday afternoon. No Republican voted for the Affordable Care Act on final passage. He also referred to the individual mandate as the “individual responsibility” clause of the bill, in an attempt to distance the administration from...

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia suggested on Wednesday that the Supreme Court could strike the "Cornhusker Kickback" from President Barack Obama's landmark health care overhaul without having to invalidate the whole law. He was right, in a way: The notorious provision isn't in the law. The "Cornhusker Kickback" was the derogatory nickname of one of several sweetheart deals designed to ensure that the law had enough votes to pass. Amid a public uproar, lawmakers ultimately stripped the measure from the law. But no one—not Scalia's eight colleagues on the highest court in the land, not Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, there...

White House has no contingency plans if health law is tossedBy Amie Parnes - 03/28/12 03:17 PM ET The White House has no contingency plans in place in the event the Supreme Court rules the healthcare law is unconstitutional. White House officials said Wednesday they remain “confident” that the healthcare reform law is constitutional and is implementing all the provisions of the law. If the law is thrown out, there's “no contingency plan in place,” principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said at Wednesday’s press briefing with reporters. “We're focused on maximizing the benefits of this law.” President Obama was...

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeff Toobin: “This still looks like a train wreck for the Obama Administration, and it may also be a plane wreck. This entire law is now in serious trouble. It also seems that the individual mandate is doomed. I mean, Anthony Kennedy spent much of this morning talking about if we strike down the individual mandate, how should we handle the rest of the law? Now, it is less clear that they are going to strike down the whole law. There does seem to be some controversy in the court about that. Certainly there are some...

So far there doesn't appear to have been any fireworks — or more accurately, duds --- at the Supreme Court today as there were yesterday. In part, that's because the topics under review aren't as explosive: severability and Medicaid expansion. That doesn't mean that the day has been entirely uninteresting, either, as Philip Klein reports for the Washington Examiner: Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court this morning considered what to do with the rest of President Obama's national health care law if its individual health insurance mandate is struck down. Though it was difficult to get a clear read on...

Jeffrey Toobin tweeting from today's Supreme Court hearing on Obama's health care reform:  We're getting the quick reports now. There is just a 20 minute window for reporters at the court to file their dispatches from this morning's arguments over whether the individual mandate to buy health insurance could be separated (and struck down) separately from the rest of the law.  In other words: if the court finds the mandate is unconstitutional, does just the mandate go away, or does the entire law fall with it?  Over at SCOTUS Blog Tom Goldstein writes:  The Court is really struggling with severability. Generally...

Obamacare: Know your enemy posted at 9:15 am on March 28, 2012 by Steven Den Beste “What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.” — Sun Tzu Which means you have to know what the enemy’s strategy is. So just what do Obama and the Democrats want out of the SCOTUS review of Obamacare (ACA)? There are three basic questions that the Supreme Court is trying to decide. 1. Should they decide now, or wait? (That was argued on Monday.) 2. If they decide now, then is the individual mandate unconstitutional? (Today.) 3. If the...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday is entering the last of its three days of arguments over the Obama health-care law, with justices set to weigh what happens to the rest of the overhaul if the court strikes down the requirement that individuals carry health insurance. We have reporters at the court, who are sending in updates on the action. The morning session started at 10 a.m. ET, and the afternoon session starts at 1 p.m.