Hobby Lobby: Trying to get DemProgs to understand what it means

Support Hobby Lobby With Your Business… And Help Explain the Truth About Them and the Supreme Court Decision to the Low-Informed

Bookworm Room: Impressed by the ill-informed hysterical reaction that my “real me” Facebook friends had to the Hobby Lobby decision, I explained to them that the decision is very narrow and will not (a) ban contraceptives across America and (b) lead to anti-gay lynch mobs. Here’s a slightly revised version of my Facebook post, which still failed to satisfy their paranoia and inability to understand the law.  I’ve also added a little hypothetical that might open their minds.  (No, don’t say it.  It’s improbable, but not impossible, that a DemProg mind can open).

The Hobby Lobby decision addresses one thing only:  whether an administrative rule conflicts with a long-standing law.

In 1993, a Democrat Congress passed, and a Democrat president signed, the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (“RFRA”). RFRA holds in relevant part that the federal government may act in a way that substantially burdens the exercise of religion only if it can establish that its action is the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling government interest. Nothing in the Act distinguishes between individuals and corporations.

The administrative rule at issue is the edict from Health and Human Services (“HHS”) mandating that all corporations affected by Obamacare must provide their female employees with unlimited access to all contraceptives available on the market.

Hobby Lobby is a closely-held, family-run corporation. The Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, has a strong Christian faith, and is open about the fact that it runs its company in a way that is consistent with the family’s religious beliefs. These beliefs affect every aspect of the way in which Hobby Lobby is run, whether it’s the fact that even the least of Hobby Lobby’s employees gets paid an hourly amount that’s almost twice as much as minimum wage, or the fact that many of the store’s craft products come complete with little crosses attached to them.

Hobby Lobby has long provided comprehensive insurance for its employees. As part of this insurance, it makes available to its employees 16 different types of contraceptives. Moreover, Hobby Lobby has never said (a) that it would stop covering contraceptives entirely or (b) that contraceptives should be outlawed in America. Instead, it made a very narrow protest to the HHS mandate:  It objected to the fact that the mandate would force it to offer, not 16, but 20 contraceptives to its employees.  The additional 4 contraceptives are or can be used as abortion-causing agents.  The Green family’s religious faith means that it is adamantly opposed to abortion, which it considers murder.

The HHS mandate put Hobby Lobby in an impossible position: It could either use its own money to pay directly for abortifacient drugs or it could pay $475 million a year in penalties. It was this dilemma, it argued, that constituted a substantial burden on its exercise of religion under RFRA. Put another way, Hobby Lobby argued that it faced a Hobson’s choice:  directly fund something it opposes on core religious grounds or go bankrupt.  On these facts, the Supreme Court agreed that Hobby Lobby had satisfied the “substantial burden” requirement under RFRA.

There was something else that the Supreme Court accepted as given: For purposes of the ruling, the Supreme Court accepted as true HHS’s claim that forcing corporations to pay for their female employees’ contraceptives (simply because the Obama administration says it’s unfair not to) serves a compelling government interest.

(As an aside, I was thinking about this “unfair” point. According to my DemProg friends, the demand that corporations pay for contraceptives arises because it’s not fair that women have to shoulder these costs, while men don’t. Let’s put aside the fact that the DemProgs can’t explain why it’s fair that corporations must bear contraception costs.  The really important point is that, if the reason to force corporations to shoulder the burden is so that women don’t have to pay more in costs related to their unique biology just because they are women, corporations should also be required to pay for tampons, sanitary pads and, most importantly, chocolate, all of which are costly menstrual necessities that burden women, not men.  Additionally, corporations should be entitled to learn which employees have gone through menopause, so as to scale back on those uniquely feminine costs.  And now back to the Hobby Lobby case…)

With the Supreme Court having accepted that Hobby Lobby had proved that it was being significantly burdened and that HHS had proved a compelling government interest, the sole issue before the Court was whether HHS was using the least restrictive means to advance its compelling interest. Based on this single, limited issue, the Supreme Court concluded that HHS’s birth control mandate did not meet the RFRA test. The Court had a very simple metric for proving this conclusion: HHS itself handed the Court proof that there was a less restrictive way to serve this compelling interest.

HHS created this less restrictive contraception mandate when religious non-profit organizations objected to paying directly for contraceptives and abortifacients. HHS said that religious institutions could avoid the mandate by signing a document stating that their religious beliefs prevented them from complying with the contraception mandate. With this document, the onus shifts to the insurance company to apply the mandate.  (The Little Sisters of the Poor are challenging this workaround on the ground that it cannot apply to self-insured entities.  Likewise, even if the religious entity has a third party insurance company, the insurance company will simply increase its rates, with the result that the money for the contraceptives and abortifacients will still come from the corporation that has religious objections.  The Supreme Court’s eventual decision should be interesting.)

With HHS having already figured out a less intrusive method for getting “free” contraceptives to women, the Supreme Court held that the same workaround that applies to religious non-profits can apply equally well to closely held corporations if the owners have a sincere belief in a core religious issue. And that’s it. That’s the whole Hobby Lobby decision.

My Facebook explanation was clear enough that those who have been brainwashed into being terrified by the Hobby Lobby decision had only two defenses left. The first was that religious fanatics will use the decision to justify myriad things such as banning birth control nationwide, revoking the rule that corporations must pay for women’s contraceptives, and refusing to hire gays (a fear based upon this letter from a religious leader who clearly hadn’t read the Hobby Lobby decision himself).

The second defense, which I’ll address in the remainder of this post, was that the entire decision is wrong because, as a predicate matter, it treats a corporation as a person. “Corporations aren’t people” my DemProg friends cry, as they’ve been programmed to do since the Citizens United decision.  In other words, Hobby Lobby has no conscience and therefore cannot be treated as a conscientious objector.

I came up with a hypothetical scenario — a probable hypothetical scenario — that should have DemProgs insisting that, yes indeedy, corporations can and should be people — or, at least, Leftist corporations can and should be people.

The year is 2026. Since 2020, Republicans have majorities in Congress and a president in the White House. The wars in Syria and Iraq long ago merged, starting a conflagration that constantly threatens to spill over into every region of the world. The result is the Islamist caliphate equivalent of the Cold War, with the U.S. trying to put out small Islamic fires all over the world in order to de-fang the Sunni and Shia monsters without having to engage them directly on American soil.

The military is more central to American life and survival than ever. Defense costs have therefore skyrocketed, so Republicans went looking for new ways to equip the military. To this end, they noted that America’s business class was arguably benefiting most from the military’s efforts, because businesses were able to carry on and profit primarily because the military kept the Islamists far from American shores. It therefore would be logical for corporations to subsidize a significant part of the war effort.

Based upon this reasoning, in 2022, the Republicans successfully passed a new law, known as the Act for an Affordable Military (“AAM”). The Acts’ supporters affectionately call it “Adopt A Marine.” Its detractors refer to it disdainfully as “America’s A Monster.”

AAM goes far beyond traditional military funding, which relied upon tax revenues funneled to the Pentagon. Instead, AAM directly engages corporate America as an essential part of equipping the American military. Immediately upon the Act’s passage, the Pentagon was tasked with creating rules under AAM (a 3,200 portmanteau document written in vague and broad terms) that would shift onto corporations primary responsibility for equipping troops.

The Pentagon immediately issued a rule mandating that henceforth every corporation will be responsible for outfitting Marines with everything a Marine at war could need:  uniform, pack, weapons . . . the whole megillah.  Moreover, the number of Marine Gear Kits (or “MGKs”) that a corporation must assemble will be equal to the number of employees the corporation has. Thus, a corporation with ten employees must put together 10 MGKs, a corporation with 50 employees must put together 50 MGKs, and so on. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2012 Obamacare decision, this kind of . . . ahem . . . “tax” (i.e., forcing taxpayers to purchase a product, even if they don’t want it themselves) is perfectly legitimate.

Corporations that fail to comply with the MGK mandate will be assessed an annual tax equal to $10,000 per MGK, with no maximum cap. That means that, if a corporation with 50 employees refuses to put together its designated MGKs, it will pay an annual penalty of $500,000. A corporation with 30,000 employees could find itself on the hook for $300,000,000 annually.  Again, the Supreme Court’s 2012 Obamacare decision legitimized this “penalty” for failure to “pay” the “tax.”

Something else has changed now that the Cold War against the new Caliphate is being carried out by Republicans:  The DemProg peace movement is resurgent. Two of the most active peaceniks, Sol and Luna Giggleweed started out in their home office in 2020 (when Republicans finally re-took Congress and the White House following Elizabeth Warren’s ill-fated four-year presidency), designing, creating, and marketing bumper stickers, window signs, mugs, toilet paper . . . anything that could advance the pacifist cause.

With business booming, the Giggleweeds incorporated, calling their new business “Pacifists United Together Zone” or “PUTZ.” They now have 50 full-time employees working in their green-compliant factory in San Francisco’s SoMa district.

Thanks to the Giggleweed’s business acumen, you can now walk into any trendy store and buy one of PUTZ’s $25 king-size mugs emblazoned with “Live Peacefully or Die.”  If that’s too expensive, for $10 you can get a set of 10 bumper stickers reading “Peace : The New Caliphate Wants It Too.” PUTZ also manufactures the usual complement of sweatshirts with peace signs on them; posters urging people to “Visualize World Peace” or “Pray for Israel’s Destruction”; and the ever-popular Naughty Underwear set, in both multigender and cisgender versions, with “Make Love, Not War” glitter-stamped on the crotch.

For the Giggleweeds, peace isn’t just a gimmick to make a motive; it’s also their core ideology. Both Sol and Luna attended the Bush-era anti-war protests, and they oppose Republican-led wars with every fiber of their DemProg beings.

Significantly, even the Giggleweed’s faith is driven by their pacifism. They are ardent members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (aka “PCUSA”).  In 2018, PCUSA’s governing board formally voted that “We, the PCUSA, oppose all wars, except for those wars dedicated to Israel’s destruction.”

Nobody quite knows how it did it, but PCUSA asserted that this vote reflected a core religious principle derived from the Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles.  PCUSA’s revised doctrine is immune to challenge thanks to the tattered remnants of the First Amendment (which, in 2018, was amended to state that “Except as to matters of human sexuality and gender identity, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . .”).

PUTZ employees are as devout as the Giggleweeds. Indeed, many of them came to the Giggleweed’s attention during the Bush War protests.  Without exception, all of the employees belong to PCUSA or affiliated faiths. Their strong anti-war beliefs (unless, of course, the war is waged against Israel) infuse every aspect of their lives.  They are grateful to work at PUTZ, a corporation with a business model that puts pacifism on the front line, so to speak.

For these reasons, the Giggleweeds and their PUTZ employees were horrified when AAM became law and, even worse, when the Pentagon explicitly passed to corporations the responsibility for providing MGKs. PUTZ therefore joined with PCUSA and other like-minded churches and mosques, which are also on the hook for MGKs, to object to the mandate that they directly invest in MGKs or pay a substantial penalty to help fund the “Republican Anti-Caliphate War Machine.”

The Republican establishment was unmoved by anti-AAM protesters. Instead, it took great pleasure in reminding the protesters and litigants that, thanks to agitation from this same cadre of people in the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision, Congress in 2016 (Year One of Elizabeth Warren’s disastrous administration) amended RFRA to state explicitly that it does not apply to corporations, regardless of the corporation’s size or whether it’s publicly traded or closely held. There is no way out for the Giggleweeds and PUTZ: they either put together MGKs for the Marines, or they pay $500,000 so that someone else can put the MGKs together for them.

To the Giggleweeds and their ilk, the Republicans have only one thing to say:  It’s always nasty when your own chickens come home to roost.

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Hobby Lobby Wins SCOTUS Decision as Obama Racks Up a String of Judicial Losses at Supreme Court

It has been a tough week for President Obama at the Supreme Court!  As the somewhat surprising ObamaCare loss to Hobby Lobby was added to the tally on Monday, the Obama administration lost 4 out of 5 big decisions and 2 were rare 9 to 0 decisions.

The Roberts Court

By Marion Algier – Ask Marion

Although not unanimous decisions, after months of judicial rulings reining in big government and police on issues like snooping on Americans without a warrant, restrictions on campaign finance and President Obama’s recess appointment powers, the administration’s losses on ObamaCare rules and compulsory union dues served as a final rebuke by the Supreme Court on their last day of this session.

In the five years that President Obama has been in office, the Supreme Court has rejected the government’s argument with a 9-0 decision 20 times.

During the eight years each in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the government lost on unanimous votes 23 times and 15 times, respectively, putting the Obama administration on course to to be the biggest loser in recent history in terms of judicial losses.  Unfortunately for the American people, Obama won on the big one… the most damaging decision for America: ObamaCare, a decision many people are still baffled by and questioning.

President Obama appointed two of the sitting Supreme Court Judges Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, under an umbrella of considerable scrutiny and dissent by conservatives, the right. So the number of unanimous cases are important in that nobody can say, ‘Well, there are five Republican appointees on the court and only four Democrats.’

“These cases where they haven’t gotten the votes of either of the two Obama nominees means the arguments being presented by the Justice Department to the court are just out of left field,” said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Monday’s decisions were not unanimous, but congressional Republicans and other critics of President Obama saw the rulings as evidence that the Roberts court is finally acting as something of a final line of defense, a check and balance as they were meant to be, against a president who brags about his use of executive power to bypass Congress and impose his progressive agenda on the American people.

House Speaker John A. Boehner said of Monday’s decision, “It is a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its big government objectives.”  Boehner announced last week that he would be suing the president for abuse of executive authority.  And although it is unclear how that lawsuit will play out, the administration’s recent track record in high-profile cases has been poor.

Chief Justice John Roberts managed to corral unanimous votes on both privacy and recess appointments — cases that have dealt stinging defeats to the president, having himself been a lawyer and former lecturer on constitutional law.

US Supreme Court to police: To search a cell phone, 'get a warrant':

Christian Science Monitor: WASHINGTON — In a major affirmation of privacy in the digital age, the US Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that police must obtain a warrant before searching digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested.

The 9-to-0 decision marks a Fourth Amendment landmark of profound importance given the ubiquity of cell phones, tablets, and portable computers in public places throughout society.

“Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans the ‘privacies of life,’ " he said.

“The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought,” the chief justice said.

“Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple – get a warrant.” Read More

The Supreme Court delivered a solid blow Thursday to President Obama, ruling that he went too far in making recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.

SCOTUS Limits Recess Appointments Decision:

Fox News: In a unanimous decision, the high court sided with Senate Republicans and limited the president's power to fill high-level vacancies with temporary appointments. It was the first-ever Supreme Court test involving the long-standing practice of presidents naming appointees when the Senate is on break.

In this case, Obama had argued that the Senate was on an extended holiday break when he filled slots at the NLRB in 2012. He argued the brief sessions it held every three days were a sham that was intended to prevent him from filling the seats.

The justices rejected that argument, though, declaring the Senate was not actually in a formal recess when Obama acted during that three-day window.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in his majority opinion that a congressional break has to last at least 10 days to be considered a recess under the Constitution. Read  More

On recess appointments, justice was delayed but served…

Mandatory Union Fees Curbed by Court in Blow to Labor

BusinessWeek: A divided U.S. Supreme Court handed a setback to organized labor by placing new limits on the ability of unions to demand fees from some public-sector workers.

The high court, voting 5-4, invalidated Illinois rules requiring union payments from people who provide in-home care for disabled Medicaid recipients. The majority said those rules violated the workers’ constitutional right to freedom of speech and association because the home health-care workers weren’t true public employees.

“If we accepted Illinois’ argument,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in today’s majority opinion, “we would approve an unprecedented violation of the bedrock principle that, except perhaps in the rarest of circumstances, no person in this country may be compelled to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she does not wish to support.”  Read More

Hobby Lobby Wins SCOTUS Decision

Ask Marion/THITW:  Monday’s decision was very narrow and some pro-life and religious groups question whether it was a win in the long run in their battles.  It certainly was in the short run!! You be the judge…

Attorneys Who Defended Hobby Lobby Celebrating

American Thinker: Hobby Lobby 1, Obamacare 0

The Supreme Court upheld the religious freedom rights of Hobby Lobby, the closely-held corporation owned by believing Christians who objected to being required to supply the abortion pill to their employees.

Steve Ertelt of Life News reports:

…the U.S. Supreme Court today issued a favorable ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions.

Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Samuel Alito handed down the decision for the high court, saying, “The Supreme Court holds government can’t require closely held corporations with religious owners to provide contraception coverage.”

“HHS’s contraception mandate substantially burdens the exercise of religion,” the decision reads, adding that the “decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion saying that government itself could provide the coverage for contraception and the abortion-causing drugs if a company declines to do so.

The Hobby Lobby decision only applies to companies. Non-profit groups like Priests for Life and Little Sisters are still waiting for a ruling about their right to opt out of the mandate.

Note that this ruling only applies to closely-held corporations, but does not rule out applying the same religious freedom reasoning to publicly-held firms and nonprofits.

Ed Lasky points out:

The fact that both these decisions [Hobby Lobby and the forced union dues case] were 5-4 points out the danger of Obama picking the next SC Justice with Reid in control of the Senate. If the opportunity present itself, he will abolish the filibuster for SC nominees, too.

Memo.com: The Supreme Court Gets It Right

Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court has stepped up to defend Americans’ most basic freedoms from the full-frontal assault by the rampaging band of leftists running America. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, a Christian business that objected on religious ground to Obamacare’s mandate that they must cover certain contraceptives.

Hobby Lobby is among about 50 businesses that have sued over covering contraceptives. Some, like Hobby Lobby, are willing to cover most methods of contraception, as long as they can exclude abortifacients.

Justice Samuel Alito said the decision is limited to contraceptives. “Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs,” he said. He suggested two ways the administration could deal with the birth control issue. The government could simply pay for pregnancy prevention, he said. Or it could provide the same kind of accommodation it has made available to religious-oriented, not-for-profit corporations.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was part of the majority, also wrote separately to say the administration can solve its problem easily. “The accommodation works by requiring insurance companies to cover, without cost sharing, contraception coverage for female employees who wish it,” Kennedy said. He said that arrangement “does not impinge on the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs.” Everyone’s rights respected and problem solved. Easy peasy.

Of course, Obamacare was never about health care or health insurance. It was only and always about government power and control. Over you. That’s what the contraceptive mandate was all about: social engineering, abortion made even easier to get, and with the government holding the strings of control over all of it.

Thank goodness the Supremes ruled on the side of religious liberty. It’s about time. But that 5-4 split is too close for comfort. As we head into 2016, don’t forget that the Supreme Court—like all of our courts—hangs by a thread, and with it, our most basic freedoms.

Huffington Post:  If Hobby Lobby Wins, Pro-life Christians Lose

We now know with certainty that the Supreme Court will announce its Hobby Lobby decision on Monday. This weekend, the craft and home décor store, along with numerous evangelical institutions that have filed briefs in its support -including my former employer the National Association of Evangelicals–are hoping and praying God will favor them with a whole new expansion of religious freedom and the protection of human life. I’m praying for the opposite.

Along with nearly 50 other for-profit corporations, Hobby Lobby is demanding the same religious freedoms and protections that each of us has. Hobby Lobby was not endowed by its Creator with certain unalienable rights. It does not have a soul. It cannot have faith. Yet its owners (and their lawyers) insist that it should not have to comply with the contraceptive coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act on religious grounds. The Obama Administration reasonably granted an opt-out to houses of worship and other religious nonprofits. Hobby Lobby wants similar treatment.

Evangelical intervention on behalf of the multi-billion dollar corporation, which donates generously to their causes, is wrong for many reasons but here are two major ones: If you are pro-religious liberty and pro-life and family, you can’t support allowing a for-profit corporation to use religion to deny contraceptive coverage.

First, supporters of Hobby Lobby think they are helping the Christian faith but are actually harming it. In fact, a ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby weakens religious freedom.

When anyone can use religion to claim an exemption on anything, religion loses meaning. Rather than a personal belief embedded in our souls, faith would become a set of arbitrary rules any corporation could choose from to skirt the law.

Is this what evangelicalism needs? I spent nearly three decades in governmental relations at the National Association of Evangelicals defending the free-exercise of religion and the right to life, among many other traditional values. Coming to the aid of for-profit corporations who want to ride on the backs of religion is not one of these honored principles.

Indeed, it is a kind of corporatism invading the body of Christ — concern not for the “least of these” but the richest of those among us. Is this what Christ would do?

When corporations are allowed the same exemptions that have always been reserved just for churches–whether on health benefits, hiring, or land use–those special protections become less clear and more open for interpretation.

If a for-profit corporation is eligible for legal exemptions on grounds of religious freedom, it puts government in charge of deciding what is or isn’t religion. You can just imagine the lawyers who will find work forever litigating these claims. I know, from experience, that their concern for what should be “legal” is not the same as what is “spiritual” or truly serves the interests of the Church.

What if a corporation owned by Jehovah Witnesses refuses to cover blood transfusions? If Christian corporations are allowed to use faith to refuse contraception coverage to women who work for them, what’s to stop a Christian Scientist business from refusing to cover any health benefits?

Second, the supporters of Hobby Lobby think they are being “pro-life.” They are wrong. A massive study conducted in 2012 showed that contraception coverage without a co-pay could dramatically reduce the abortion rate.

That study, conducted by the Washington University School of Medicine, of 10,000 women at-risk for unintended pregnancy found that when given their choice of birth control methods, counseled about their effectiveness, risks, and benefits, with all methods provided at no cost, about 75 percent of women in the study chose the most effective methods: IUDs or implants. Most importantly, as a result, annual abortion rates among study participants dropped up to 80 percent below the national abortion rate.

Well, you might ask, based upon some of the charges being made, aren’t the contraceptive methods being funded through the Affordable Care Act, abortifacients? Not if you believe medical science.

In the words of Jeffrey F. Peipert, M.D., Ph.D., the Robert J. Terry Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine, “these contraceptive methods work by preventing pregnancy (fertilization) from occurring in the first place. For instance, the intrauterine device works primarily by preventing fertilization. Plan B (or the progestin-containing, morning-after pill), along with Ella (ulipristal acetate), delay the release of a woman’s egg from her ovary. The egg does not get fertilized, which means the woman does not become pregnant.”

In sum, Evangelicals supporting Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court are not actually being pro-religious freedom or pro-life. If they win at the Supreme Court, these causes will be damaged in the long run.

Although this decision in favor of Hobby Lobby is generally seen as a victory by most on the right, and a win for freedom in general, it has opened the door for a lot of whining by the left, who will certainly take their misinformation and use it as a weapon in the upcoming 2014 Elections.  Therefore, it could not be a better time for Carly Fiorina’s new Pac… the UP Project, to educate women.

A big Supreme Court win on ‘greenhouse gas’ regulations for the EPA

The only win for the White House and the EPA this Supreme Court Session was on greenhouse gas:

Human Events:

The outcome is likely to be welcomed by environmentalists because it confirms the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to restrict greenhouse gases.

The justices handed down two separate rulings in a dispute over permits for new or modified power plants and factories.

In a 7-2 vote, the justices agreed the Environmental Protection Agency could force major polluters to use new and better technology to limit their emissions of carbon dioxide.

“These are major polluting facilities, such as factories and coal-fired power plants,” said Justice Antonin Scalia, and they are already subject to EPA restrictions. Now, those restrictions can include limits on greenhouse gases, he said.

The only disappointment faced by the regulatory State was that a separate 5-4 decision kept it from extending this authority to “millions of other facilities,” as the L.A. Times puts it, although I think that could be more properly rendered as “virtually all other facilities.”  The greenhouse-gas fantasy retains its grip on power plants, but at least they can’t make nearly every construction project pull “greenhouse gas permits,” which is where all of this was headed.  Today’s ruling also won’t do anything to stop the broader War on Energy carried out by the Obama Administration.  Considering what they won at the Supreme Court, their losses are trivial. Read More

Jonathan Turly Weighs In On Supreme Court Ruling & Executive Orders Special Report:

REP. BOB GOODLATTE (R-VA): Professor Turley, the constitution, the system of separated powers is not simply about stopping one branch of government from usurping another. It's about protecting the liberty of Americans from the dangers of concentrated government power. How does the president's unilateral modification of act of Congress affect both the balance of power between the political branches and the liberty interests of the American people?

JONATHAN TURLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The danger is quite severe. The problem with what the president is doing is that he's not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He's becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid. That is the concentration of power in every single branch.

This Newtonian orbit that the three branches exist in is a delicate one but it is designed to prevent this type of concentration. There is two trends going on which should be of equal concern to all members of Congress. One is that we have had the radical expansion of presidential powers under both President Bush and President Obama. We have what many once called an imperial presidency model of largely unchecked authority. And with that trend we also have the continued rise of this fourth branch. We have agencies that are quite large that issue regulations. The Supreme Court said recently that agencies could actually define their own or interpret their own jurisdiction. (House hearing, December 3, 2013).

Video:  Jonathan Turly Weighs In On Supreme Court Ruling & Executive Orders Special Report

UPDATE: The Kelly File, 2/12/2014: Turley on Expansion of Presidential Powers: "We Have Become a Nation of Enablers"

As for me… All in all, I’d say it was a great week!!  It is just too bad we can’t get decisions on the Constitutionality of important matters a little bit quicker!  It would save us a whole of hurt… money and time!!

Related:

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Justices turn away 'conversion' therapy ban cases

Scalia Dissent: Judicial Gay Marriage Decision Is Jaw-Dropping

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Did NSA Blackmail Roberts to OK ObamaCare?

U.S. Supreme Court dumps AZ voter law

Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare…

Scalia vs. Thomas Jefferson on secession

Democrats eye Hobby Lobby defeat as a weapon on the campaign trail

HUMPHRIES: The liberal bully of the week is … Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Critics Question Constitutionality of President’s Executive Actions – Andrew Napolitano – The Kelly File

Technorati Tags: Supreme Court,Obamaland,SCOTUS,Law,Constitution,Chief Justice John Roberts,Scalia,NLRB,ObamaCare,Constitutional Law,Case Law,Overreach,Speaker Boehner,John Roberts,Fourth Amendment,Unons,EPA,Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Obamacare’s Tough Day in Court

Divided Supreme Court Hears Hobby Lobby’s Challenge to the Contraceptive Mandate

By: Roger Aronoff  -  Accuracy in Media  -  Cross-Posted at the NoisyRoom

Since its passage, a number of lawsuits have attempted to undermine Obamacare as a law, with varying degrees of success. The individual mandate challenge failed before the Supreme Court in 2012, despite what seemed like positive reception to the challenge during oral argument. Hobby Lobby went before the Supreme Court on March 25 to challenge the religious liberty implications of the contraception mandate portion of the law.

While the media have largely focused on the Hobby Lobby challenge, a few blocks away, the D.C. Court of Appeals was hearing another argument about Obamacare—one that, if passed, could well have the effect of ending this law as we know it. And it has liberals running scared.

In the piece “Forget Hobby Lobby. The Bigger Legal Threat to Obamacare Still Has Life,” Alec Macgillis writes for the New Republic, “If the contraception challenge succeeds, it just means that that one sliver of Obamacare is struck down. If this other challenge succeeds, both sides agree that it would blow up the entire law.”

The argument for the plaintiffs is as follows: In order to provide the 60th vote, which was necessary to get the bill through the Senate, Ben Nelson, the then-Democratic senator from Nebraska, insisted on a clause that said that federal subsidies could only go to people who signed up on exchanges set up by the states. The purpose was to incentivize states to actually set up exchanges.

Then, the plaintiffs argue, the IRS wrote a rule in 2012 which reinterpreted the law to say that federal exchanges could give out subsidies as well. “The alternative policy under the IRS’ rewriting of the rule creates a bizarre circumstance where it’s almost impossible to fulfill the Act’s purpose of having state-run exchanges, because it eliminates any tangible incentive for these people to go ahead and adopt the exchanges,” argued Michael A. Carvin, the plaintiffs’ attorney, before the Court of Appeals on March 25. “So they’ve created a situation which has predictably resulted in only 14 states doing what Congress clearly wanted 50 states to do, which is to set up their exchanges.”

Arguably, however, the mostly Republican governors who have refused to set up exchanges also did so for political reasons.

Carter-appointed Judge Harry Edwards had a Hillary Clinton moment during the oral arguments. He demanded that Carvin “forget the subsidies” argument and explain why it was important whether the federal government or states control the exchanges. He demanded loudly, twice, “What difference does it make who does it? Forget the subsidy.”

But we can’t forget the subsidies. They are at the heart of the law, and its practice. The Washington Post has reported that “About 85 percent of those signing up for insurance in federal-run exchanges have qualified for financial assistance to purchase coverage.” In other words, this amounts to a massive federal redistribution of wealth for millions—85% of enrollees. (Let’s ignore for a moment that we have no idea how many enrollees actually purchase their insurance after “selecting” it. If they know, the federal government isn’t telling us.) “Without those subsidies, the insurance would be less affordable, leaving those with the greatest health needs with more motivation to purchase coverage,” writes the Post. “That makes for a worse risk mix, driving up the cost of insurance to cover the sicker pool of people, creating what’s known as an insurance ‘death spiral.’” The federal exchange is already at risk of a death spiral if it cannot entice enough of the young and healthy to sign up.

The case could also undo the individual mandate. “Were the case to succeed, it would mean that dozens of state governments opposed to Obamacare could significantly narrow its scope by refusing [to] set up exchanges, thus preventing residents from claiming subsidies,” explains the Washington Examiner. “In those states, employers wouldn’t be penalized for failing to offer qualifying insurance (which is triggered by workers seeking federal subsidies), meaning that anti-Obamacare states could become more attractive to businesses trying to get around the employer mandate.”

“It would also increase pressure on Congress to undo the individual mandate.”

Judge Edwards said that this was a transparent attempt by Carvin and his plaintiffs to “gut” the law. Indeed, those opposed to the lawsuit seem more concerned with saving the law than looking at the Act’s original language. MacGillis cites Clinton-appointed Judge Paul Friedman in his earlier ruling that “Plaintiffs’ proposed construction in this case—that tax credits are available only for those purchasing insurance from state-run Exchanges—runs counter to this central purpose of the ACA: to provide affordable health care to virtually all Americans…Such an interpretation would violate the basic rule of statutory construction that a court must interpret a statute in light of its history and purpose.” “Under the challengers’ logic, Judge Friedman added, the exchanges administered by the federal government ‘would have no customers, and no purpose,’” writes Macgillis. Is it really the Courts’ purview to decide whether a government program should survive, as opposed to whether the law is being executed constitutionally and legally?

Indeed, according to The Wire, without federal subsidies, “Many of those people would fall in to the hardship gap and not have to buy insurance or pay the individual mandate.” There are two other cases besides this one “challenging the authority of the IRS to rewrite the statute and allow subsidies to flow through the federal exchanges,” according to Forbes.

Never afraid of punditry, MSNBC abandoned all pretense of journalism and called this discussion of the Senate’s original intent a “drafting error.” Adam Serwer writes that “The Affordable Care Act managed to have two bad days in court on the same day,” adding that the argument means that “Congress was handing Republicans an Obamacare self-destruct button.”

But, he offers hope to his liberal readers: “If the government loses before the panel, it can ask for the D.C. Circuit to hear the case ‘en banc,’ before the judges on the D.C. Circuit.” Then it could go to the Supreme Court.

Why is the ‘en banc’ ability important? Because President Obama has stacked the court, of course. “After the Democrats nuked the filibuster, Obama was able to make four appointments to the court,” writes Serwer. “Though judges’ opinions don’t always track with those of the party that appointed them, thanks to the changes to the filibuster, more Democratic appointees than Republican appointees would rule on the matter.” In other words, partisan politics would play out if the entire bench were to hear the case.

A decision is supposed to come in late June, and looks like it will be in favor of the plaintiffs. But, the Washington Examiner warns, oral arguments can be misleading. “As always, it’s hard to predict judicial outcomes based on oral arguments, a lesson that was made abundantly clear when many observers predicted that the Supreme Court would strike down the individual mandate only to see it upheld,” Philip Klein writes.

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at roger.aronoff@aim.org. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

Hobby Lobby vs Sebelius Goes Before the Supreme Court

INFOGRAPHIC: What Exactly This Hobby Lobby Case Is About

If the contraception mandate passes, it will ruin a core U.S. ideology

 

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Affordable Care Act,Contraception,SCOTUS,Supreme Court,ACA,PPACA Medicare,Mandates,Religion,Christianity,Sebelius,Ideology,Americana,Rick Warren,Thoughts,Constitution,Founding-Ideals,Freedom,Hobby Lobby

What If Buying Coffee Was Like Buying ObamaCare ????

Video: What If Buying Coffee Was Like Buying ObamaCare ????

Cross-Posted at the NoisyRoom  and AskMarion  -  h/t: Tom Elia – The New Editor 

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Constitution,Financial,Politics,Survival,Taxation,Buying Coffee

Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement - Justice Resolutions - Obama Admin Vs Little Sisters 1-4-2014

Video: Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement - Justice Resolutions - Obama Admin Vs Little Sisters 1-4-2014

Pirro On Obamacare Contraception Mandate: YOU LIED!

“And yet, you as a former constitutional professor, refuse to exempt them from the contraception mandate. You, the same guy who grants exemptions and waivers left and right to unions, political buddies, bundlers, but not to the women who have devoted their lives to God and caring for the sick?” – Judge Jeanine Pirro

By Caleb Howe

On Fox News’ Justice With Judge Jeanine on Saturday, host Jeanine Pirro in her opening statement addressed the Obamacare contraception mandate and the nuns made famous recently by Justice Sotomayor.

It seems all to obvious, and Pirro puts it in stark terms. But this is a clash of religions and those are rarely settled easily. On one side, the Catholic Church and their fundamental religious objection to providing contraception. On the other, the Liberal Church and their fundamental religious devotion to giving every single living human being on the planet some form of contraception.

The Obamacare acolytes do not care about religious freedom. Well, not Christian religious freedom anyway. It is merely an inconvenient part of American life they tolerate so long as it doesn’t get in their way. But when that free exercise clashes with their fervent devotion to contraception and abortion, you can bet they won’t be willing to budge an inch. Lip service only lasts as long as the lips have nothing to yell about.

Pirro lays the fight right at President Obama’s feet, where it belongs. Here is the transcript of the above clip:

I want a government that respects religious freedom. Mr. President, now that you’re back from your Hawaiian vacation … how’d you hitt them? How’s that handicap? You come back and you try to take away from the Little Sisters of the Poor, a 175-year-old religious organization that cares for low income elderly who are dying, their right to exercise their First Amendment freedom of religion. You promised the Catholic Church you would not, under Obamacare, force those with religious objection to provide contraception to employees, which of course is contrary to their fundamental beliefs and their exercise of their religion.

In spite of your promise, you are spending millions in legal fees to force the Little Sisters of the Poor who spend their lives serving the sick and the elderly to provide contraception, sterilization and abortifacients to their employees? Pray tell, Mr. President, might you have lied to the Catholic Church? And now you’re going to court to sanction one home $6,700 a day? What don’t you understand about the Little Sisters of the Poor? Now, I don’t care if you’re pro-choice or pro-life, you have a fundamental right to practice your religion. You have a fundamental right to the First Amendment, freedom of religion.

And yet, you as a former constitutional professor, refuse to exempt them from the contraception mandate. You, the same guy who grants exemptions and waivers left and right to unions, political buddies, bundlers, but not to the women who have devoted their lives to God and caring for the sick? Hell, even a convicted muslim felon in federal prison can exercise their freedom of religion. They can’t be punished for exercising their religion. And you go after these nuns to force them to violate their religion or put them out of business? Am I asking for too much? We’re only talking about your word. Religious freedom, the First Amendment. Mr. President. It’s 2014, and we are not getting off to a good start.

 

Technorati Tags: Little Sisters,New Year's Resolutions

Yes, States Have the Constitutional Right to Nullify Obamacare

Capitalism Institute: Every effort to navigate the proper channels to repeal Obamacare have been thus far blocked by Democrats (and even some big government Republicans), despite practically everyone hating the oppressive legislation.

Naturally, states are considering other means by which to stop this economic disaster before it gets even worse.

South Carolina and Georgia have already jumped on board with a state-level model developed by the Tenth Amendment Center to effectively nullify Obamacare in their states. The template is even being applied outlaw the NSA from operating within Arizona.

Using this model to combat Obamacare, South Carolina and Georgia are prepared to “nullify” Obamacare by withholding the state’s personnel and resources the law depends on. It would be illegal for the state’s resources to contribute towards the law’s implementation. This is essentially how it works:

Nullification begins with a decision made in your state legislature to resist a federal law deemed to be unconstitutional. It usually involves a bill, passed by both houses and signed by your governor. In some cases, it might be approved by the voters of your state directly, in a referendum. It may change your state’s statutory law or it might even amend your state constitution. It is a refusal on the part of your state government to cooperate with, or enforce any federal law it deems to be unconstitutional.

Most of the “naysayers” will tell you that these nullification efforts are “illegal” because of the supremacy clause:

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, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

However, those at the Tenth Amendment Center disagree:

The major argument used by those that oppose Nullification is the Constitution’s supremacy clause. But in fact, the arguments for the supremacy clause ARE the arguments for nullification.

They continue:

The major architects of the Constitution, and those that led the fight for its adoption, laid down what the supremacy clause meant during the ratifying conventions. By doing so, they defended state sovereignty, and set the stage for the negation of unconstitutional actions.

Judge Andrew Napolitano, a senior judicial and political analyst, recently confirmed that these efforts are, in fact, legal — and effective: 

[I]t will gut Obamacare because the federal government does not have the resources or the wherewithal […] to go into each of the individual states.

It was Alexander Hamilton who said, “but the laws of Congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding.”

The TAC cites several other historic quotes from the New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina ratifying conventions and the Federalist Papers demonstrating that the supremacy clause is — and was intended to be — a platform upon which we could hold an overbearing federal government “in check”:

[The Founders] established the means for the states to defend themselves and their citizens from a general government that exceeding its authority and that power is NULLIFICATION.

The nullification of overbearing, unconstitutional federal laws is essential to preserving our liberty. The Founders were certainly not ignorant of the consequences of letting a federal government run amok; thus, they crafted in our Constitution a fail-safe.

When Congress seems more interested in propelling us head-first into tyranny rather than protecting us from it, we have to take matters into our own hands.

The nullification efforts in South Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona are just the beginning.

You can help fight this country’s descent into despotism by sharing this article with your legislators, friends, family, and colleagues. Liberty is at risk with every passing generation. It is time to take action.

Perspective: New Law - "The Affordable Boat Act" 2014

The Hull Truth –  Stolen from another website - Cross Posted at AskMarion:

The U.S. government has just passed a new law called: "The affordable boat act" declaring that every citizen MUST purchase a new boat, by April 2014. These "affordable" boats will cost an average of $54,000-$155,000 each. This does not include taxes, trailers, towing fees, licensing and registration fees, fuel, docking and storage fees, maintenance or repair costs.

This law has been passed, because until now, typically only wealthy and financially responsible people have been able to purchase boats. This new law ensures that every American can now have a "affordable" boat of their own, because everyone is "entitled" to a new boat. If you purchase your boat before the end of the year, you will receive 4 "free" life jackets; not including monthly usage fees.

In order to make sure everyone purchases an affordable boat, the costs of owning a boat will increase on average of 250-400% per year. This way, wealthy people will pay more for something that other people don't want or can't afford to maintain. But to be fair, people who cant afford to maintain their boat will be regularly fined and children (under the age of 26) can use their parents boats to party on until they turn 27; then must purchase their own boat.
If you already have a boat, you can keep yours (just kidding; no you can't). If you don't want or don't need a boat, you are required to buy one anyhow. If you refuse to buy one or cant afford one, you will be regularly fined $800 until you purchase one or face imprisonment.

Failure to use the boat will also result in fines. People living in the desert; ghettos; inner cities or areas with no access to lakes are not exempt. Age, motion sickness, experience, knowledge nor lack of desire are acceptable excuses for not using your boat.

A government review board (that doesn't know the difference between the port, starboard or stern of a boat) will decide everything, including; when, where, how often and for what purposes you can use your boat along with how many people can ride your boat and determine if one is too old or healthy enough to be able to use their boat. They will also decide if your boat has out lived its usefulness or if you must purchase specific accessories,(like a $500 compass) or a newer and more expensive boat.

Those that can afford yachts will be required to do so...its only fair. The government will also decide the name for each boat. Failure to comply with these rules will result in fines and possible imprisonment.

Government officials are exempt from this new law. If they want a boat, they and their families can obtain boats free, at the expense of tax payers. Unions, bankers and mega companies with large political affiliations ($$$) are also exempt.

If the government can force you to buy health care, they can force you to buy a boat....or ANYTHING else..

So Yah...it's that stupid...  and that frightening!!

Mark Levin: ObamaCare Is A Purely Political Law And A Power Grab

Next Tuesday and the Fate of ObamaCare

American Thinker – Cross-Posted at AskMarion: No election -- state or national -- will be as important in sending a message about ObamaCare or massive lawbreaking by government than the one on Tuesday in the Virginia governor's race.

Republicans running in 2014 and 2016 are watching whether Ken Cuccinelli wins to determine if they should be bold, hard-charging Ted Cruzes, or whether they should roll over by making weak, token passes at ObamaCare that will do nothing but ensure its permanence.

The Washington establishment wants to paint this election as a referendum on principled conservatism -- tea partyism.  Ken Cuccinelli is more than just a conservative.  He is a constitutional conservative, and like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, (Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann), makes establishment Republicans nervous.

The collaboration of establishment Republicans with big government and their lack of effectiveness in controlling it are exposed when constitutional conservatives hold office.

Already the forces for bloated, lawbreaking government are giddy with the prospect that Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will go down in defeat.  The Washington Post headline reads, "Cuccinelli's hard-line conservatism seems headed for decisive rejection in Va."

Democrat Terry McAuliffe, an ObamaCare supporter who has stated his desire for a public option that would lead to a government-run healthcare system, has the lead and a huge money advantage in these final days.  The lead is shrinking, and may be overcome.

ObamaCare is not merely a massive expansion of the federal government.  It stands for the imposition of federal government lawbreaking in the most basic, private elements of our lives.

It will be run in the same fashion shown by the lawbreaking IRS, NSA and EPA, and as the incompetent rollout shows, even worse.  The more the imposition of government in our daily lives, the worse it acts.

Bureaucrats will bully ordinary Americans over basic medical decisions, some of life or death, some of religious importance, and many about our loved children and our elderly.  Those who fight the system will be targeted for heavier handedness.  The Bill of Rights will become even less relevant than they are now.

The left and the political establishment understand the stakes next Tuesday more than conservatives do.  New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has poured over $1 million into this race to squelch gun rights.  Bill and Hillary have been helping their friend McAuliffe, who rented the Lincoln Bedroom when he was their top fundraiser. 

Crony capitalists far and wide will see if one of their own will be rewarded in the face of his own highly questionable GreenTech business that is under investigation by the SEC, and has raised questions of whether it is a visa-for-cash scam.

Ken Cuccinelli was the first state attorney general to file suit against ObamaCare, appropriately saying that the case was about freedom instead of healthcare.  The election on November 5 is a signal to Republicans.  Will they get the right message?  More appropriately stated, will we send them the right message?

President Obama will campaign with Terry McAuliffe this Sunday.  With his presidency collapsing around him as his signature accomplishment shows itself to be a massive failure, he is eager to pass the torch for his agenda.  A win for McAuliffe would be resuscitation for ObamaCare and government lawbreaking.  A win for Cuccinelli would be the real beginning of the end of Obamacare.

Ken Cuccinelli for Governor of Virginia

Please get involved… Vote, Volunteer, Donate

Major change coming to Obamacare: Anyone who voted for or supported BO will receive an exemption

Conscience of a Conservative:  Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, was written with explicit language that it was to include everyone. No exceptions. Even members of Congress and their staff were mandated to follow the same rules as every other American citizen. This was apparently done to appease the Republicans and get their support for the bill. Then just before the 2012 elections several unions who had endorsed and campaigned for Barack Hussein Obama began to receive exemptions from the mandatory requirements. Then it was disclosed that members of Congress were concerned that their highly paid staff members would be persuaded to leave their cushy jobs if they had to pay for their own health insurance, like everyone else. So our Great Leader issued a decree that made them exempt and the government would continue to provide their insurance. Now we read that 40,000 union members have quit the AFL-CIO because they don’t like the idea of having to pay for their health insurance.

40,000 Longshoreman Quit AFL-CIO Blaming ObamaCare

In what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation’s largest private sector unions. The Longshoremen citied Obamacare and immigration reform as two important causes of their disaffiliation.

In an August 29 letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, ILWU President Robert McEllrath cited quite a list of grievances as reasons for the disillusion of their affiliation, but prominent among them was the AFL-CIO’s support of ObamaCare.

“We feel the Federation has done a great disservice to the labor movement and all working people by going along to get along,” McEllrath wrote in the letter to Trumka.

The ILWU President made it clear they are for a single-payer, nationalized healthcare policy and are upset with the AFL-CIO for going along with Obama on the confiscatory tax on their “Cadillac” healthcare plan.

What isn’t a surprise is that almost immediately after this announcement, some union leaders asked Obama to also exclude them from the mandatory coverage requirement. And it looks like they will get it. So what it all comes to is that the only people who will be forced to buy health insurance will be people who didn’t support or vote for Obama. In other words, Obamacare is really just a tax on Republicans.

In order to get Obamacare passed through Congress, then Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi famously remarked, “You have to pass the bill before you can see what’s in it.” But even when the bill was being written it had parts added for the expressed purpose of persuading certain groups from opposing it. Like the powerful NRA gun lobby. Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid inserted a clause in ACA that reversed a previous order to have family Physicians inquire if their patients had a gun in their house.

Following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, Obama issued his 23 Executive Orders to formulate Gun Control and one of those orders retracted the clause in Obamacare that Harry Reid inserted and once again, family doctors will be asking their patients if they own a gun. And since all medical records will be electronically stored and accessed by the government, anyone who admits they have a gun will be easily identified.

The true nature of Barack Hussein Obama’s government is becoming clearer and clearer every day. He admits he doesn’t need Congress to pass his laws, he can issue them by Executive Order. The Constitution is just an inconvenient piece of paper to him. He ignores and changes written laws to please himself and his friends and his supporters by issuing his Royal Decrees and Exemptions. It would not be surprising to learn he has a plan to remain in office after the end of his present term. And yes, there is a word for that, its called Dictator.

My name is Nelson Abdullah and I am Oldironsides.

Technorati Tags: Constitution,Financial,Politics,Survival,Taxation,ObamaCare,healthcare,watch the other hand,ACA,Defund ObamaCare,Executive Orders,EO's,ObamaCare mandates,ObamaCare surprises,gun control,Big Brother,Nancy Pelosi,Harry Reid,unconstitutional

Suit: Roberts' ruling a poison pill for Obamacare

Calling mandate, penalties a 'tax' creates huge constitutional problem

WND:

The penalties Americans will be required to pay under Obamacare for going without health insurance were declared constitutional in a U.S. Supreme Court decision that hinged on Chief Justice John Roberts’ assertion that the assessments are taxes.

But a legal challenge to the federal government takeover of health-care decision-making says that’s a problem, because Harry Reid created the Obamacare legislation, with all of its new “taxes,” in the U.S. Senate.

The Constitution

any tax bills to begin in the House.

The demand for an explanation is being raised in an amended complaint filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing a man who believes the new bureaucracy isn’t legal.

“If the charge for not buying insurance is seen as a federal tax, then a new question must be asked,” said Paul J. Beard II, the principal attorney for the organization.

When lawmakers passed the Affordable Care Act, with all of its taxes, “Did they follow the Constitution’s procedures for revenue increases?” Beard asked.

The Supreme Court wasn’t asked and didn’t address this question, he noted.

“The question of whether the Constitution was obeyed needs to be litigated, and PLF is determined to see this important issue all the way through the courts,” he said.

PLF explained that under the Supreme Court’s decision in June, the Affordable Care Act now charges a “tax” on Americans who fail to buy health insurance.

But Reid introduced the tax plan in the Senate, not the House, as the Constitution’s Origination Clause requires for new revenue-raising bills, in Article I, Section 7, the legal team argued.

The plaintiff in the case is Iowa small business owner Matt Sissel, who chooses to pay for medical expenses on his own. He objects “on financial, philosophical, and constitutional grounds to be ordered by the federal government to purchase a health care plan he does not need or want, on pain of financial penalty.”

“I’m in this case to defend freedom and the Constitution,” said Sissel. “I strongly believe that I should be free – and all Americans should be free – to decide how to provide for our medical needs, and not be forced to purchase a federally dictated health care plan. I’m very concerned about Congress ignoring the constitutional roadmap for enacting taxes, because those procedures are there for a purpose – to protect our freedom.”

He served in the Army National Guard until 2008 and spent two years in Iraq as a combat medic. He received the Bronze Star and now owns an art business in Iowa City.

“It’s dispiriting to see our lawmakers treat the rules set out in the Constitution with disrespect, as if they’re just suggestions, or as if members of Congress are too important to follow them,” he said.

His lawsuit was filed before the Supreme Court opinion was released by Roberts, but it was on hold while that case from the National Federation of Independent Business and 26 states was pending.

The plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case alleged that a mandate to buy insurance was a violation of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, and the Supreme Court agreed. But Roberts’ opinion simply changed the “penalty” as it was enacted by Congress to a “tax” and deemed it constitutional for that reason.

Reid took a House-passed bill that helps veterans buy homes, eviscerated it and inserted the Obamacare language.

“When we focus on the Origination Clause, we’re not talking about dry formalities and this isn’t an academic issue,” said Beard. “The Founders understood that the power to tax, if misused, involves the power to destroy, as Chief Justice John Marshall put it. Therefore, they viewed the Origination Clause as a vital safeguard for liberty. They insisted that the power to initiate new taxes should be left with the lawmakers who are most directly accountable to voters – members of the House, who are elected every two years by local districts.”

The Sissel complaint is being amended to challenge the entire law on that basis.

The amended complaint explains that Roberts specifically approved the “shared responsibility payment,” which the Obama administration said was not a tax, as “a tax.”

“The chief justice explained the apparent inconsistency in concluding that the ‘shared responsibility payment’ is a tax for constitutional purposes, but not for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act.”

His logic was that while Congress did not have the power to require citizens to buy insurance, it could require them to pay a tax.

But Roberts’ holding that the payments are taxes “raises new questions about the tax’s conformity with other constitutional provisions,” which the court left unresolved, the legal filing said.

“Despite the fact the act raises considerable revenues, it originated in the Senate, not the House,” the brief argues. “The Affordable Care Act was not the result of a lawful amendment of H.R. 3590, because the subject matter of the one had nothing whatsoever to do with the other.”

The Obamacare law already was under attack in the courts for its “mandate” that employers pay for abortifacients for employees. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed by Christian organizations that say the mandate violates freedom of religion.

In a Michigan pending case, the government insisted it has the authority to “substantially burden the exercise of religion” on two conditions.

If it is “in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest” and “the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”

Technorati Tags: abortifacients,ObamaCare,ObamaTax,repeal and replace ObamaCare,taxes,Chief Justice John Roberts,religious freedom,Supreme Court,U.S. Constitution,Constitution,Affordable Care Act taxes,Origination Clause,tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives,H.R. 3590,this version of the ObamaCare bill origiinated in the Senate

Obamacare Has Literally Replaced the Constitution

Written by Gary North on June 22, 2012   - Tea Party Economist

The textbook account of how laws are made is for children. It presents the procedure as if it were governed by the Constitution. This is silly. That went out with high-button shoes.

The legal system that prevails today is administrative law: rule by government bureaucracies that cannot be fired. The story of how this legal revolution has re-shaped law in the West, threatening a new tyranny, appears in the 45-page introduction to Law and Revolution (1983), a great book by Harvard University’s legal historian Harold Berman. Those 45 pages are among the most important that I have ever read.

A recent study by the Cato Institute describes one section of Obamacare: the creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB. This unelected board will set prices and payment systems for medicine under the plan.

Obamacare was created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which in turn creates IPAB. According to the Cato report, written by a lawyer,

When the unelected government officials on this board submit a legislative proposal to Congress, it automatically becomes law: PPACA requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to implement it. Blocking an IPAB “proposal” requires at a minimum that the House and the Senate and the president agree on a substitute. The Board’s edicts therefore can become law without congressional action, congressional approval, meaningful congressional oversight, or being subject to a presidential veto. Citizens will have no power to challenge IPAB’s edicts in court.

But what if — this is 99% hypothetical — a majority in Congress decides that the IPAB payment schedule (taxes) is not a good idea? Well, tough bananas.

PPACA forbids Congress from repealing IPAB outside of a seven-month window in the year 2017, and even then requires a three-fifths majority in both chambers. A heretofore unreported feature of PPACA dictates that if Congress misses that repeal window, PPACA prohibits Congress from ever altering an IPAB “proposal.” By restricting lawmaking powers of future Congresses, PPACA thus attempts to amend the Constitution by statute.

IPAB’s unelected members will have effectively unfettered power to impose taxes and ration care for all Americans, whether the government pays their medical bills or not. In some circumstances, just one political party or even one individual would have full command of IPAB’s lawmaking powers. IPAB truly is independent, but in the worst sense of the word. It wields power independent of Congress, independent of the president, independent of the judiciary, and independent of the will of the people.

This means that the Constitutional sovereignty is a dead concept, unless five people on the U.S. Supreme Court declare the law unconstitutional. (Therefore the ruling on Thursday 06.26.12 is the most important in America’s history… there is a lot more at stake than just healthcare!)

This will serve as a legal precedent. New laws will create similar boards.

Kiss the Constitution goodbye.

It was all so easy.

The 22-page report is here: Continue Reading on www.cato.org

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,ObamaCare unconstitutional,Supreme Court,death panels,rationing,IPAB,Surpreme Court rulings,Cato Institute,Affordable Care Act