This SCOTUS Decision Most Critical of Out Lifetimes


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Marbury vs. Madison is a clear case of usurping a power that the constitution never gave to the Supreme Court in its appellate function. The Founders never granted the Court the power to declare laws unconstitutional. In appeals, they could only decide on the case addressed. Justice Marshall overstepped a line and no subsequent court has ever stepped back.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Yes Bob, you have made this point numerous times.

I put that case in there specifically to illustrate the point that we all have to suffer from poor decisions that have existed forever, Constitutionally speaking.

It is called "Stare decisis (Anglo-Latin pronunciation: /ˈstɛəri dɨˈsaɪsɨs]) is a legal principle by which judges are obliged to respect the precedents established by prior decisions. The words originate from the phrasing of the principle in the Latin maxim Stare decisis et non quieta movere: "to stand by decisions and not disturb the undisturbed."[1] In a legal context, this is understood to mean that courts should generally abide by precedents and not disturb settled matters.[1]" and we are currently stuck with it. http://en.wikipedia....i/Stare_decisis

Plessy was precedent, until it was overturned. Dred Scott. The precedent cases are quite extensive and form the body of a specific developmental law that we function, for better or worse with.

So now you have made your traditional Marbury v. Madison statement for the record.

So noted.

Now, might you comment on the substance of the post?

Adam

The Supremes are political hacks.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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I do not have time right now to respond to Bob's lucid and in depth response to my prior post.

The Wall Street Journal reported on President Thuggery's attempt today to clarify, or, walk back, or re-explain his ignorant and pathetic interpretation of Constitutional law. Clearly, President Thuggery can be excused because he never taught Constitu....um, ...oops...never mind.

The Man Who Knew Too Little

President Obama's stunning ignorance of constitutional law.

By JAMES TARANTO

We were half-joking yesterday when we asked if Barack Obama slept through his Harvard Law class on Marbury v. Madison, the 1803 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court first asserted its power to strike down unconstitutional laws. It turns out it's no joke: The president is stunningly ignorant about constitutional law.

At an appearance this afternoon, a reporter asked Obama a question following up on yesterday's comments: "Mr. President, you said yesterday that it would be 'unprecedented' for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress. But that is exactly what the court's done during its entire existence. If the court were to overturn the individual mandate, what would you do, or propose to do, for the 30 million people who wouldn't have health care after that ruling?"

, we have not seen a court overturn [pause] a [pause] law that was passed [pause] by Congress on [pause] a [pause] economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce. A law like that has not been overturned [pause] at least since Lochner, right? So we're going back to the '30s, pre-New Deal."

In fact, Lochner--about which more in a moment--was decided in 1905. Thirty years later, after the New Deal had begun, the high court unanimously struck down one of its main components, the National Industrial Recovery Act, as exceeding Congress's authority under the Interstate Commerce Clause. The case was Lochner v. New York, should be a sufficient tip-off. In Lochner the court invalidated a state labor regulation on the ground that it violated the "liberty of contract," which the court held was an aspect of liberty protected by the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause. (The legal doctrine at issue, "substantive due process," refers to the meaning of "life, liberty and property" under the Due Process Clause.)

Lochner, which was effectively reversed in a series of post-New Deal decisions, did not involve a federal law--contrary to the president's claim--and thus had nothing to do with the Commerce Clause, which concerns only the powers of Congress.

It's appalling that any president would have the effrontery to lecture the Supreme Court about a pending case. It's astounding that this president, who was once a professor of constitutional law at an elite university, would do so in such an ignorant fashion.

The man is a freaking imbecile and should resign or be impeached.

Together with Joe "The Plagiarist" Biden, they are probably the dumbest tandem to ever occupy the White House.

Adam

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Appeals court fires back at Obama's comments on health care case

By Jan Crawford

Obama040212_244x183.jpg (Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

(CBS News) In the escalating battle between the administration and the judiciary, a federal appeals court apparently is calling the president's bluff -- ordering the Justice Department to answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom.

The order, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, appears to be in direct response to the president's comments yesterday about the Supreme Court's review of the health care law. Mr. Obama all but threw down the gauntlet with the justices, saying he was "confident" the Court would 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."

Overturning a law of course would not be unprecedented -- since the Supreme Court since 1803 has asserted the power to strike down laws it interprets as unconstitutional. The three-judge appellate court appears to be asking the administration to admit that basic premise -- despite the president's remarks that implied the contrary. The panel ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page, single-spaced letter by noon Thursday addressing whether the Executive Branch believes courts have such power, the lawyer said.

The panel is hearing a separate challenge to the health care law by physician-owned hospitals. The issue arose when a lawyer for the Justice Department began arguing before the judges. Appeals Court Judge Jerry Smith immediately interrupted, asking if DOJ agreed that the judiciary could strike down an unconstitutional law.

The DOJ lawyer, Dana Lydia Kaersvang, answered yes -- and mentioned Marbury v. Madison, the landmark case that firmly established the principle of judicial review more than 200 years ago, according to the lawyer in the courtroom.

Smith then became "very stern," the source said, telling the lawyers arguing the case it was not clear to "many of us" whether the president believes such a right exists. The other two judges on the panel, Emilio Garza and Leslie Southwick--both Republican appointees--remained silent, the source said.

Smith, a Reagan appointee, went on to say that comments from the president and others in the Executive Branch indicate they believe judges don't have the power to review laws and strike those that are unconstitutional, specifically referencing Mr. Obama's comments yesterday about judges being an "unelected group of people."

I've reached out to the White House for comment, and will update when we have more information.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Health Care Reform

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I think we are witnessing checks and balances at its finest.

It's nerve-wracking right now because we are in the middle of it, but later we will probably look back and say the collision of powers in stopping a power grab was magnificent.

Michael

What we are actually seeing is the marginalizing of the President.

--Brant

he's doing it to himself

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Yep - Brant - correct...

Obama-verses-the-court.jpg

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This is a classic case of one of the racist echo chamber O'bama drones, "Professor" Michael, Verbal Shuck and Jive, Eric Dyson abuses of logic and language: [from This Week April 8th 2012]

WILL: I think it probably will if I had to bet on it. What the president said was, the Supreme Court, or as he calls them a "group of unelected people" were to strike down a law passed by what he calls "strong majorities", seven votes in the House, 60 votes in the Senate only because corrupt prosecutors from his Justice Department knocked Ted Stephens out of the Senate. Leave that aside. He said it would be unprecedented. Well, in fact the Supreme Court in 2008 in a ruling about the habeas corpus right of detainees at Guantanamo Bay struck down an important portion of George Bush's signature achievement, which is the apparatus of the War on Terror. Five to four decision. The junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama applauded the court for doing that.

TAPPER: So, Michael I want to go to you because I know you actually don't have a problem with what President Obama said.

DYSON: No, not at all. I mean I'm glad that he's engaged himself in a very serious expression. And -- and look, it's much ado about nothing. I think the right wing is making hay over what is a reason considered viewpoint. That is to suggest that an activist court, which has been remonstrated against by the far right with viciously escalating rhetoric, is now meeting its own end. And Obama's saying, look if you've been complaining about an activist court then don't have this activism work in your defense.

And then secondly I think, look all of this othering of Obama, like he's from some other planet. Everything he does is subject to a different lens and seen through a microscope that really tends to pick him apart. I think it's indivisible from the broader issue of his race, of his being a black man with a certain kind of authority. These are impolite things we don't want to talk about. We think that they're being extraordinary ratcheted up. But I don't see any other way to explain it but a remarkable resistance to the integrity of this man that has no other explanation.

TAPPER: When you hear Republicans say that President Obama is being a bully, you hear racial subtexts?

DYSON: Of course. Bully -- I mean look this guy -- if -- if you can't deal with this reasoned, articulate expression of difference and dissent and calling that bullying. And on the one hand Obama has to be worried about, I can't be an angry black man. I can't speak up in a certain way. He's already constrained by the stereotypes that prevail. If you can't even take his dissent as an expression of legitimate disagreement and instead of ascribing to him bullying, I don't see how...

(CROSSTALK)

FREELAND: You think being black has made the president less effective?

DYSON: Well, it's made his job much more difficult because even white liberals who support him, obviously play into certain racial scripts. Black people who support him -- and -- and across the board, I think it's very difficult for the president to be able to maneuver because he has to be so concerned. He can focus on the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, but can't necessarily highlight the 44th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. There are choices to be made. I think he's done an extraordinarily interesting and powerful job of it. But I think the constraints are not his, but imposed on him from the outside.

(CROSSTALK)

WILL: But regardless of his skin pigmentation, what he said was factually, demonstrably false. He said something would be unprecedented that has many precedents, probably thousands since 1803.

DYSON: That I don't have a problem with. I'm talking about the overall response to him and the picking apart and the refusal to concede legitimacy of difference. Not to point out where you would disagree with him. I think that's powerful.

NOONAN: Can I say this -- the president is known as an extremely bright man. He was an instructor of constitutional law. For him to say something so deeply incorrect and almost unknowing about the -- the purpose of the Supreme Court seemed provocative. At the very least sloppy and what the heck is he doing? But at the most, provocative. A real brush back. A real, I'm going to go to war with the court.

CHALIAN: He was definitely laying a predicate. I mean the aids will say, no, no, no he wasn't thinking that far in advance. But he clearly was laying the predicate that in case the -- the law is overturned, he's going to set up sort of that politicization of the court and another 5:4 decision. And -- and these comments will be looked back at. But let's be clear, he -- he gave his critics an opening here and the White House knew it. He cleaned it up the next day because of the -- the inaccuracy. They did not want to spend this whole week talking about Marbury V. Madison. And -- and Jay Carney had to walk back these comments all week. He -- he definitely slipped here and I think they tried to make a course for it.

============================================================================================

The highlighted purple bullshit is supposed to pass for a rational point of view...it isn't. It is barely understandable.

Adam

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It's not that he's seen as black but a fraud. --Brant

And a liar too. He took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. Has he?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Has anybody ever seen the swatch of "whiteness" around his nose as in this photo?

Obama’s selective memory of Supreme Court history

Posted by Josh Hicks at 06:02 AM ET, 04/09/2012

Obama_007f4.jpg?uuid=oRxnUIAEEeGYd9KiifMXMg

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-selective-memory-of-supreme-court-history/2012/04/08/gIQARSnK4S_blog.html

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Has anybody ever seen the swatch of "whiteness" around his nose as in this photo?

Obama’s selective memory of Supreme Court history

Posted by Josh Hicks at 06:02 AM ET, 04/09/2012

Obama_007f4.jpg?uuid=oRxnUIAEEeGYd9KiifMXMg

http://www.washingto...SnK4S_blog.html

More like a Pinnochio look about the nose. Every time he opens his mouth it grows longer. The man is an Oath Breaker.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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More like a Pinnochio look about the nose. Every time he opens his mouth it grows longer. The man is an Oath Breaker.

Depends on what oath you're talking about.

--Brant

taqiyya

To defend and protect the Constitution of the United States.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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More like a Pinnochio look about the nose. Every time he opens his mouth it grows longer. The man is an Oath Breaker.

Depends on what oath you're talking about.

--Brant

taqiyya

To defend and protect the Constitution of the United States.

Ba'al Chatzaf

No need to repeat yourself.

--Brant

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  • 2 months later...

That this (Obamacare) ever became law speaks volumes about the socialist cesspool America has been evolving into. Sad, indeed. Shrug.

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  • 1 year later...

The Opponents of Obamacare Are Completely Missing the Point

Peter Schwartz in Forbes 12/13/13

Hi Cathy,

History of health insurance and medical costs in the US from the beginning of health insurance is summarized here. The history covered there includes the introduction of Medicare, which your aunt opposed. She acknowledged that gaining health insurance under that proposed program would be a good thing for the individuals gaining it, but she argued against provision of that good thing through the government.

She argued that the only proper function of government is protection of individual rights, which meant police, courts, and national defense, not any of the other activities of government. She saw the morality of altruism, the accepted virtue of sacrificing the better-off to those in need, as the fundamental reason for the appeal of socialized medicine, including Medicare. I agree.

In my estimation, that was the fundamental reason by which the expansion under the Affordable Care Act had the popularity it did have among the electorate. I expect Ayn Rand would concur. It was a close contest to get the law passed and (largely) upheld, as you know. The blind spot—silent spot, really—of most Republican legislators was that they could not answer “But what about the good thing that about eighty million Americans who cannot afford health insurance would have it if we pass this law?” The reply that there were other ways to get them covered rang hollow, and the culture had not (yet?) been turned around against the virtue of altruism.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some excerpts from The Objectivist Newsletter, the publication of Rand and her associates 1962–1965, all content approved by Rand:

“Doctors and the Police State” – Leonard Peikoff (June 1962)

Having eroded the value of everyone’s savings through decades of inflationary deficit spending, the statists have now decided to pose as champions of their own victims—specifically, those over 65 years of age. The Kennedy Administration’s King-Anderson bill proposes to finance hospital and nursing home care for the aged out of the tax money collected through the Federal Social Security system.

Nobody bothers much any more to deny that this is only a first step. There is no principle by which the State can claim to be responsible for the hospital expenses of the aged, but not for their doctors’ bills—or for the costs of those under 65 with chronic diseases—or for the psychiatric expenses of those in mental institutions— . . . or, ultimately, for everyone’s medical expenses. The leaders of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan name their purposes more openly: Premier Woodrow S. Lloyd has announced that, as of July 1 of this year, full-scale socialized medicine will be instituted throughout the province.

The statists in both countries seek to counter the protests of the medical profession by claiming that government-financed medicine is compatible with perfect freedom for the doctors. Said Secretary Ribicoff: “It should be absolutely no concern to a physician where a patient gets the money . . .”

The truth is, that it is a matter of life and death concern. He who pays the money for a service is morally obligated to see that he receives full value in return: he must set the terms, conditions and standards governing his expenditures. . . . If it is the government that does the paying, then the government has to decide who is qualified to receive its money—how much a particular service is worth—under what conditions that service is necessary and under what conditions it is merely a squandering of State funds . . .

. . .

By what moral principle are the doctors to be deprived of their right to practice their profession as free men? By the principle of altruism: the principle that man is a sacrificial animal, that the only justification of his existence is the service he renders to others, and that any consideration or concern for the men who provide the services is irrelevant. . . .

. . .

When altruism reaches so corrupt a stage, its full meaning comes out into the open. The emphasis changes from love to obedience, from handouts to handcuffs, from the Welfare State to the Police State.

It is happening now in the United States. Some two hundred New Jersey doctors, led by Dr. J. Bruce Henriksen, signed a petition of protest against the King-Anderson bill. They declared that they would continue voluntarily to treat the indigent aged without charge, but that they would refuse to treat anyone whose medical care was financed under the government’s plan. The meaning of their action was clear-cut; it cannot be evaded and it had nothing to do with the needy. It was the action free men have always taken to protest an advancing dictatorship: the statement that they will not sanction, help, or participate in the growth of slavery.

What was the response they received? “Greedy private doctors,” charged Zalmen J. Lichtenstein, executive director of the Golden Ring Council of Senior Citizens. “A breach of ethics as bad as anything else I could imagine,” declared New Jersey Governor Hughes. . . .

“The attitude of these doctors in opposition to a basic national need is shocking,” said Secretary Ribicoff. . .

Harry S. Truman summarized the humanitarian viewpoint in its most eloquent form. Asked what he thought of the doctors’ revolt, he replied: “I think they ought to be hit over the head with a club.”

The club was not long in coming. . . .

In February of 1963, Ayn Rand addressed a meeting of the Ocean County Medical Society, which included among its members Dr. Henriksen and his associates in the protest. Portions of her address appeared in The Objectivist Newsletter the following month.

“How Not to Fight against Socialized Medicine”

I am happy to have this opportunity to express my admiration for Dr. Henriksen and the group of doctors who signed his resolution.

. . . More than any other single factor, it was Dr. Henriksen’s group that demonstrated to the public the real nature of the issue, prevented the passage of the King-Anderson bill and saved this country from socialized medicine—so far.

. . .

The majority of people in this country—and in the world—do not want to adopt socialism; yet it is growing. It is growing because its victims concede its basic moral premises. Without challenging these premises, one cannot win.

. . .

Consider, for instance, the outcome of the Canadian doctors’ struggle in Saskatchewan. The doctors had gone on strike against the full-scale socialized medicine instituted by the provincial government. They won the battle—and lost the war; in exchange for a few superficial concessions, they surrendered the principle for which they had been fighting: to permit no socialized medicine in the Western hemisphere.

They surrendered, even though the overwhelming sympathy and support of the Canadian people were on their side (except for the intellectuals and the labor unions). They were defeated, not by the power of the socialists, but by the gaping holes in their own ideological armor. . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The text of Paul Ryan’s convention speech is here. . . .

Mr. Ryan walked in the garden extending one hand to doctrines of Jesus, the other hand to doctrines of Ayn Rand. Jesus would not take that hand, neither would Rand take the other. Ryan finds that he and Gov. Romney share the same faith-based, self-evident, and largely equivocal, moral creed. It includes the proposition that “the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.” Indeed, “the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” All of them? Or are some of the weak and helpless deserving of assistance (by government, to be sure) and others not? There is some difference here with Obama, evidently, on who should be aided.
. . .

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Thank you Stephen. Two (2) fine articles.

Schwartz was, as David, well said/written.

Hsieh's three (3) suggestions are great foundational peices to a more competitive free market in health "indurance:"

Three concrete steps that would allow Americans to buy real health insurance:

Eliminate the tax disparity between employer-provided health insurance and individually-purchased health insurance. This would uncouple health insurance from employment and restore a level playing field to the individual insurance market. Individuals could then purchase policies that they kept even when they changed jobs (just as they already do with their car and homeowners insurance).

Eliminate all mandated benefits. Insurers should be free to offer to willing consumers inexpensive policies covering only catastrophic accidents and illnesses. Insurers would remain free to offer richer policies that covered varying levels of elective procedures (but cost correspondingly more). Customers could purchase whatever levels of coverage they wished from willing insurers based on their own individual needs and circumstances.

Allow insurers to sell policies across state lines. State mandates create 50 separate state markets rather than a single national market. A family insurance plan costing $3,000 in Wisconsin might cost $10,000 in New Jersey because of state regulatory barriers. Allowing interstate competition would quickly drive down prices and help many working families on a tight budget.

I just wish that someone would have proof read the darn piece.

Finally, Dr. Hseih comes really close to being "word for word from" some other folks that have chronicled this distortion in the market, when he is describing how "group insurance" was an outgrowth of wage and price controls imposed on the post WWII economy.

It was a way employers were able to reward competent employees where they could not exceed a salary cap.

All in all, an excellent addition to this thread.

A...

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  • 5 weeks later...

And now comes another wrinkle in the 2,800 + PPACA:

Robert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to health insurance companies—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.” How can this be? Because insurance companies won’t bear the cost of their own losses—at least not more than about a quarter of them. The other three-quarters will be borne by American taxpayers.

obamacare.png

For some reason, President Obama hasn’t talked about this particular feature of his signature legislation. Indeed, it’s bad enough that Obamacare is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to funnel $1,071,000,000,000.00 (that’s $1.071 trillion) over the next decade (2014 to 2023) from American taxpayers, through Washington, to health insurance companies. It’s even worse that Obamacare is trying to coerce Americans into buying those same insurers’ product (although there are escape routes). It’s almost unbelievable that it will also subsidize those same insurers’ losses.

I have been certain that this was part of the "secret" negotiations between the administration and the insurance company's lobbyists.

A...

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Absolutely fascinating and, although I despise Pelosi, she was quite correct when she opined that we have to pass it before we know what is in it...

But it turns out there’s a third choice. Policy experts Sean Parnell and Timothy Jost have noted a loophole in the law that could attract millions of young adults—and others as well—who seek inexpensive insurance. Indeed, this third way​—​short-term health insurance​—​could provide an affordable, low-risk escape route from Obamacare. In the vast majority of states, Americans can secure health insurance for a term of up to 11 months (and usually up to 364 days), which is more than enough time to get from one Obamacare open-enrollment period to the next.

Short-term insurance wasn’t generally a very attractive option pre-Obamacare. That’s because it provided coverage only during a finite term. If you contracted a serious illness, any treatment for that condition would be covered only until the policy term ended.

- See more at: http://2017project.org/2013/12/escape-obamacare/#.UtQNfrNx2PJ

http://2017project.org/2013/12/escape-obamacare/#.UtQNfrNx2PJ

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