The Brilliant Decision

ObamaCare Held Unconstitutional: The Brilliant Decision:By Dan Miller(Pajamas Media)

Only one who simply doesn’t care about individual rights could read Judge Vinson’s decision and still believe the individual mandate is constitutional.

In a seventy-eight page order released on January 31, Judge Vinson of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division, held the mandatory medical insurance provisions of ObamaCare unconstitutional as exceeding the powers of the federal government under the Commerce Clause. Finding the mandatory insurance provisions not severable from the remainder of ObamaCare, he declared it unconstitutional in its entirety and granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendant federal government.

In most respects, Judge Vinson’s opinion tracks that of Judge Hudson in the Virginia case finding that there is no basis in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution upon which to justify it. Unlike Judge Hudson, Judge Vinson held that the mandatory medical insurance requirements are the keystone of ObamaCare, needed to fund it. He did not consider it his prerogative to attempt to rewrite the legislation and hence held that the whole thing must fall.

Judge Vinson’s decision provides many reasons why the mandatory medical care provisions of ObamaCare exceed the powers granted to the Congress under the Commerce Clause in ways never previously attempted. Congress has never sought to impose a requirement that individuals cease the inactivity of not purchasing something and undertake the activity of doing so. He provided a lengthy analysis of what the Commerce Clause originally meant, i.e. regulating “Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes,” and discussed the ways in which it has been judicially engorged:

There is no doubt historically that the primary purpose behind the Commerce Clause was to give Congress power to regulate commerce so that it could eliminate the trade restrictions and barriers by and between the states that had existed under the Articles of Confederation. Such obstructions to commerce were destructive to the Union and believed to be precursors to war.

Then came the New Deal and other legislation of the 1930s and later; things changed substantially, to the point that growing small quantities of wheat for private use was held to be covered and later growing marijuana for purely intrastate use as permitted by California was held to be covered. The theory was essentially that activities such as these, while infinitesimal in isolation, would have substantial impacts on interstate commerce if engaged in by many people.

Then, in 1995 in United States v. Lopez, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990, which criminalized the possession of a firearm in a school zone. The Court observed:

Even in cases which had interpreted the Commerce Clause … expansively, every decision to date had recognized that the power granted by the Clause is necessarily “subject to outer limits” which, if not recognized and respected, could lead to federal action that would “effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government.” … Consistent with those limits, the Lopez Court stated “we have identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power.” … The “substantially affects” category was the one at issue there, and in holding that the statute did not pass muster thereunder, the Supreme Court focused on four considerations: (i) the activity being regulated (guns near schools) was not economic in nature; (ii) the statute did not contain jurisdictionally limiting language; (iii) Congress did not make any formal findings concerning the effect of the regulated activity on commerce; and (iv) the connection between that activity and its effect on commerce was attenuated.

As for the fourth consideration, the Court impliedly conceded the claims by the government and the dissent that: (1) gun-related violence is a serious national problem with substantial costs that are spread throughout the population; (2) such violence has adverse effects on classroom learning (which can result in decreased productivity) and discourages traveling into areas felt to be unsafe; all of which, in turn, (3) represents a substantial threat to interstate commerce.

The Lopez Court made a point to “pause to consider the implications” of such arguments, however. … It found that if such theories were sufficient to justify regulation under the Commerce clause (even though their underlying logic and truth were not questioned), “it is difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power” and “we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is without power to regulate.”

To accept such arguments and uphold the statute, the majority concluded, would require the Court … to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States. Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps down that road, giving great deference to congressional action. The broad language in these opinions has suggested the possibility of additional expansion, but we decline here to proceed any further. To do so would require us to conclude that the Constitution’s enumeration of powers does not presuppose something not enumerated, and that there never will be a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. This we are unwilling to do.

Id. at 567-68; see also id. at 578, 580 (explaining that it is the Court’s duty to “recognize meaningful limits on the commerce power” and intervene if Congress “has tipped the scales too far” as federal balance is too essential a part of our constitutional structure and plays too vital a role in securing freedom”) (Kennedy, J., concurring) (emphasis added)

Judge Vinson then proceeded with a similar analysis of the 2000 Supreme Court case of United States v. Morrison challenging the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. In essence, although violence against women is bad and harms interstate commerce (women brutally attacked might, one assumes, forebear from buying shoes for awhile), it had been held otherwise to have nothing to do with interstate commerce.

In Gonzales v. Raich (2005), the Supreme Court seemingly reverted to providing expansionist interpretations of the Commerce Clause, holding that the intrastate growth of marijuana in California for medicinal purposes (lawful under California law and generally unlawful elsewhere) for the use of two seriously ill women for medicinal purposes and not to be sold interstate or intrastate was within Congressional power under the Commerce Clause. The Court found in the Commerce Clause the power to “regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic ‘class of activities’ that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” (emphasis added).

In applying precedent to the case before him, Judge Vinson noted that the Congressional Research Service had advised the Congress when it was considering ObamaCare that the insurance mandate was “novel” and “unprecedented,” presenting a “most challenging question.” These factors clearly required further analysis but did not mandate a finding of unconstitutionality. In the end, he concluded that there must be a determination, as yet unavailable from the Supreme Court which has considered only activity, of whether activity is needed or whether inactivity suffices:

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be “difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power” … and we would have a Constitution in name only. Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended.

Judge Vinson then considered whether the failure to buy medical insurance constitutes activity for Commerce Clause purposes and concludes that it does not. The government contended that everybody someday needs medical care and, should they be unable or unwilling to purchase it, some entity in effect has to purchase it for them. Judge Vinson did not buy that analysis:

As was discussed during oral argument, Congress could require that people buy and consume broccoli at regular intervals, not only because the required purchases will positively impact interstate commerce, but also because people who eat healthier tend to be healthier, and are thus more productive and put less of a strain on the health care system. Similarly, because virtually no one can be divorced from the transportation market, Congress could require that everyone above a certain income threshold buy a General Motors automobile — now partially government-owned — because those who do not buy GM cars (or those who buy foreign cars) are adversely impacting commerce and a taxpayer-subsidized business. . . .

In response to the government’s contention that a “decision” not to engage in economic “activity” is tantamount to economic activity, Judge Vinson observed:

“Economic” cannot be equated to “commerce.” And “decisions” cannot be equated to “activities.” Every person throughout the course of his or her life makes hundreds or even thousands of life decisions that involve the same general sort of thought process that the defendants maintain is “economic activity.” There will be no stopping point if that should be deemed the equivalent of activity for Commerce Clause purposes.

He also rejected government reliance on the “necessary and proper clause,” holding that under applicable precedent it permits only those governmental intrusions which are “necessary and proper” for governmental actions permitted elsewhere under the Constitution.

Somewhat humorously, he noted that the government essentially admitted that without the insurance purchase mandate:

… the Act will have serious negative consequences, e.g., encouraging people to forgo health insurance until medical services are needed, increasing premiums and costs for everyone, and thereby bankrupting the health insurance industry. … Thus, rather than being used to implement or facilitate enforcement of the Act’s insurance industry reforms, the individual mandate is actually being used as the means to avoid the adverse consequences of the Act itself. Such an application of the Necessary and Proper Clause would have the perverse effect of enabling Congress to pass ill-conceived, or economically disruptive statutes, secure in the knowledge that the more dysfunctional the results of the statute are, the more essential or “necessary” the statutory fix would be. Under such a rationale, the more harm the statute does, the more power Congress could assume for itself under the Necessary and Proper Clause. This result would, of course, expand the Necessary and Proper Clause far beyond its original meaning, and allow Congress to exceed the powers specifically enumerated in Article I. Surely this is not what the Founders anticipated, nor how that Clause should operate.

Judge Vinson accordingly held the insurance mandate unconstitutional as outside the authority of the Congress under the Commerce Clause. Having done so, he noted that although an early version of ObamaCare had had a severability clause (a very common inclusion in legislation to save its major parts from total destruction should some small part of it be held unconstitutional), the enacted version has none. He further held that the insurance mandate was, for all practical purposes, not severable from the rest of ObamaCare and that the latter must fall with the former. The government had acknowledged that the insurance mandate was “absolutely necessary for the Act’s insurance market reforms to work as intended.” To attempt to sever other parts would require substantial rewriting of all of ObamaCare, not a proper judicial function.

Finally, Judge Vinson held that there was no need to issue an injunction against implementation of ObamaCare, noting that “there is no reason to conclude that … [the] presumption [that the federal government will not ignore a federal court decision and proceed as though it had not been issued] should not apply here. Thus, the award of declaratory relief is adequate and separate injunctive relief is not necessary.”

The case will doubtless be appealed and make its way eventually to the Supreme Court.

Dan Miller graduated from Yale University in 1963 and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1966. He lives in a rural area in Panama.

 

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Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans

This story originally appeared on CNET

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(Credit: istockphoto.com)

STANFORD, Calif. – President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

 

It’s “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

 

That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.

 

The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke.

 

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it’s calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

 

“We are not talking about a national ID card,” Locke said at the Stanford event. “We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities.”

 

The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project, Locke said.

 

Details about the “trusted identity” project are unusually scarce. Last year’s announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.

 

Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. “I don’t have to get a credential if I don’t want to,” he said. There’s no chance that “a centralized database will emerge,” and “we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this,” he said.

 

Inter-agency rivalries to claim authority over cybersecurity have exited ever since many responsibilities were centralized in the Department of Homeland Security as part of its creation nine years ago. Three years ago, proposals were were circulating in Washington to transfer authority to the secretive NSA, which is part of the U.S. Defense Department.

 

In March 2009, Rod Beckstrom, director of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity Center, resigned through a letter that gave a rare public glimpse into the competition for budgetary dollars and cybersecurity authority. Beckstrom said at the time that the NSA “effectively controls DHS cyber efforts through detailees, technology insertions,” and has proposed moving some functions to the agency’s Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.

 

We’re Literally On the Brink of Catastrophic Collapse

Posted By Mac Slavo

We’ve been told a lot of things since the global economic crisis first became apparent in 2007. In March of that year Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said , “the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the sub-prime markets seems likely to be contained.” Clearly, Mr. Bernanke’s assessment was incorrect and the sub-prime real estate issues were only part of a broader, systemic issue.

The fundamental problems within our economy became mainstream news in the latter part of 2008 when stock markets around the world were in free fall and most major financial institutions were on the cusp of insolvency. In response, our government, with the full support and confidence of Congress, took unprecedented steps to save the system by injecting, first billions, and then trillions of dollars to bailout failed companies, stabilize deflationary price collapses and stimulate the economy.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson eventually wrote a book about the crisis, aptly titled On the Brink. But how close to the brink were we? If Representative Brad Sherman is to be believed, we were close. So close, in fact, that according to Sherman, Congressional members were told that if the bailout was not authorized by Congress the collapse would be so severe that martial law may have to be declared – basically, tanks in the streets. The following short video is Brad Sherman discussing the situation on the House floor:

Are we now to believe that the actions taken by Congress, The President, US Treasury and The Federal Reserve have resolved the fundamental problems facing our nation?

For those 17% of people who think the economy is in recovery and the other 33% who believe it will happen soon , we point you to the latest statement from current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitherner, who outlines the severity of the problem in a January 6, 2011 letter to Congress writes :

I am writing in response to your request for an estimate by the Treasury Department of when the statutory debt limit will be reached, and for a description of the consequences of default by the United States.

Never in our history has Congress failed to increase the debt limit when necessary. Failure to raise the limit would precipitate a default by the United States.Default would effectively impose a significant and long-lasting tax on all Americans and all American businesses and could lead to the loss of millions of American jobs. Even a very short-term or limited default would have catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades. Failure to increase the limit would be deeply irresponsible. For these reasons, I am requesting that Congress act to increase the limit early this year, well before the threat of default becomes imminent.

…

Treasury would prefer not to have to engage again in any of these extraordinary measures [suspension of the issuance of certain types of government debt and government investment vehicles]. If we are forced to do so again, these measures could delay the date by which the limit is reached by several weeks. Once these steps have been taken, no remaining legal and prudent measures would be available to create additional headroom under the debt limit, and the United States would begin to default on its obligations.

The Treasury Secretary of The United States of America just said that if we don’t get another $1 trillion or so dollars by March of this year then this country will begin to default on its debt obligations. These remarks are extremely serious and should be understood for what they are.

We are, literally and without mixing words, on the brink of economic catastrophe.

The scary thing is, according to Mr. Geithner and the many supporters of raising our debt ceiling, that borrowing more money is the only solution available.

In a recent commentary we pointed out the opposing view from Karl Denninger of Market Ticker , who said that raising the debt ceiling would essentially lead to the very same consequence as leaving it as is:

Let me be clear: If you extend the debt ceiling and by doing so allow deficits of this sort to continue for another year, say much less two, you will have placed a loaded shotgun in the mouth of this nation and pulled the trigger.

It will go off, and you will splatter this nations’ economic and political system all over the wall.

It’s a Catch 22 and there’s no way out.

Defaulting on or inflating away our debt are the only viable solutions. Both of these will lead to the same end – a complete and total collapse of the way of life Americans have become used to.

Just as Henry Paulson, President Bush, et. al. warned of economic collapse and depression in 2008, Mr. Geithner warns of the very same today. All of the trillions spent, all of the laws passed, and all of the manipulations of global asset markets, have done absolutely nothing to resolve the fundamental systemic problems we faced prior to the onset of the crisis.

It is, quite literally, going to be the end of the world as we know it – and it cannot be stopped.

It’s time for each individual to take steps to prepare for a national debt default and a complete debasement of the US dollar. It won’t be long before we either can’t meet our debt obligations or our creditors finally put a stop to our out of control borrowing. And when they do, the chances are high that we will experience a hyperinflationary monetary collapse , complete with disruptions to the normal flow of commerce, food shortages and out of control prices . The only refuge will be to understand what is money when the system collapses and start preparing now. The government is getting ready for it , so should you.

 

Government gives ineligible homeowners billions in stimulus loans

Rick Moran

This is the kind of thing that Rep. Darrell Issa should be investigating. I realize that he wants to avoid a lot of controversy at the beginning of the term, but this IG report from one department of government on how the stimulus money was misspent on one program should raise an alarm somewhere in the GOP. The Washington Post:

An internal Agriculture Department report says the government may have given out more than $4 billion in stimulus housing loans to ineligible borrowers.A preliminary report from the USDA inspector general made available Friday says a sample of 100 loans out of 81,000 showed that almost a third were given to ineligible borrowers – including some with income that exceeded the program limits, others who already owned homes and borrowers who purchased homes with swimming pools. The loans were paid for by the 2009 economic stimulus.

The inspector general’s report says the loans precluded other, eligible borrowers from receiving the help. Based on the sample results, the report estimates that 27,206 loans worth about $4 billion – or more than a third of those granted – could be ineligible.

Fully 1/3 of the stim money for this one program was wasted. Do you think it’s going to be any better in other departments, other programs?

 

What Obama Thinks of America

By Wendy Wright

Sometimes the best way to find out what a person thinks about you is to find out what he tells others.

That’s why the report on America’s human rights record filed by the Obama administration with the U.N. is particularly interesting.

It’s more accurate to say that this first-ever report to the U.N. Human Rights Council was from the Obama administration rather than from the United States.  Its main theme is what President Obama has done in his short two years, rather than what our great country has accomplished as a beacon of human rights over 234 years.

What comes through is that President Obama’s crew thinks America is congenitally discriminatory, and his administration is bravely soldiering into this morass against the unwashed masses to create an equal society.

As the report states, “[w]ork remains to meet our goal of ensuring equality before the law for all.”  Which American laws or institutions enshrine discrimination?  Not mentioned.  No matter — when you’re convinced that Americans are bigots, there is no need to provide proof.

The administration crows in the report about passing the incredibly divisive and unconstitutional health care act.  It devotes a section to the bill, with glowing aspirations of how it will end the discrimination of a racist medical system.  (Remember, these people see everything through the filter of race or identity politics — even health care.)

Yet religious freedom (in which the U.S. excels in contrast to other countries) gets a few measly paragraphs with boilerplate generalities.  Whereas the health care bill earned details like how many Asian-American men suffer from stomach cancer, the examples of a defense of religious freedom were a Native American primary school student’s right to wear his hair in a braid and a Muslim girl’s right to wear a hijab.

Maybe this administration is not keen on religious freedom.  The issue is so old-school…yesterday’s news…Christian.  And it inconveniently conflicts with one of President Obama’s priorities highlighted in the report, a priority that threatens religious freedom — privileges for those who engage in homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender behavior.

Homosexual activists conducted a campaign of harassment, threats, vandalism, and attacks on employment against people who support traditional marriage — with particular venom toward religious people.  The vile assaults on Carrie Prejean for merely expressing her views pulled away the curtain that had been hiding how homosexual activists routinely treat decent people who dissent.  It raised the question: Who is the aggressor, and who is victim?

The Obama administration would answer that question in a manner different from how most Americans would.

Their report states, “In each era of our history,” there is “a group whose experience of discrimination illustrates the continuing debate of how we can build a more fair society.  In this era, one such group is LGBT Americans.”

Did you get that?  “In each era of our history” — that is, America is historically and inherently bigoted.  Makes you wonder why they’d want to live here.

LGBT advocates (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) claim that sexual orientation is an inborn identity, like skin color or ethnicity, and they excoriate people who use the term “gay lifestyle” because it implies choices and actions.  Yet the report’s first boast of tackling discrimination against this group was the striking down of a law criminalizing sodomy.  Apparently, particular actions do define homosexuality.

But most telling is the language to describe the assault on traditional marriage.  That’s where this report proves revealing.

Remember, since he ran for president, Obama has claimed that he does not support same-sex “marriage.”  Yet he opposes the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the clearest federal statute that protects marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Obama’s Justice Department sabotaged its defense of DOMA in a legal challenge, making such weak arguments that it guaranteed a loss.  And he opposed California’s Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

So Obama opposes federal and state measures that define and enforce traditional marriage.

That’s where the report to the U.N. really gets interesting. It states, “Debate continues over equal rights to marriage for LGBT Americans at the federal and state levels, and several states have reformed their laws to provide for same-sex marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships.”

Amongst friends at the U.N., “same-sex marriage” is equal rights.  Overturning marriage laws is “reform.”

In the distorted view of the Obama administration, Americans’ deep respect for the sanctity of marriage is categorized as “discrimination.”  In their view, clinging to traditional marriage — the fundamental building block of society — is evidence of America’s breach of human rights.  Deconstructing marriage to be “whatever feels good” is considered progress.

President Obama is, as he said in his inaugural address, remaking America.  Too bad his image of America — and what he wants to turn us into — is so prejudiced.

We’re Coming,In Droves

The coming election is going to be a night to behold. If Nancy and Harry had any brains, they would do everything in their power to push legislation through to cancel November 2010. The out-of-control vitriol and pure hate coming from the left in this nation is a sad and sickening commentary for what the democrat party has become. They say we are to stupid to understand the problems facing America. They say it is racist to speak against the government. They are avoiding any and ALL discussion of their pathetic record,instead seeking to dig up dirt on any who dare oppose them. America is seeing through this smokescreen of lies,deceit and fraud from our political leaders and from the media. The swamp will be drained for them. The message will be loud and clear. There will no mistaking the intent of the voters. The ruling elitists are about to be reminded of the good ole pitchfork days of running their type of debris from office.

We cannot afford to merely be content with the natl. election defeat we are about to deliver to these people. This MUST carry over to city councils,school boards,judges benches and state legislators. The progressive socialist agenda has permeated every aspect of governance in America and has to be weeded out and permanently removed from power of any kind. The left loves to hide behind the very rules they have put in place to protect them and their positions of power. Whether it be tenure,life-time appts. or non-partisan council seats,they have to be exposed,run out into the light of day along with their destructive agendas and shown to be who and what they truly are.

The enemies of freedom,liberty and justice for all are not only hiding overseas from our brave men and women of the US military. They are walking the halls of congress,sitting in their media boardrooms,hiding behind their judges bench while shredding the constitution and infecting every local position they can con their way onto. The enemies of America serve as czars to our current administration,cabinet members and multiple advisor positions that go mostly unnoticed and unannounced by the media and hidden from view. Since our prez. has decided to constantly avoid the vetting process,we need to vet these frauds on every level. These are people who are not merely wrong on the issues and politics,they are intent on destroying the very foundations and cornerstones this great nation was built on. They are not simply misinformed of economic success,they lie about it while promoting proven and constant failure. They do all of this with the blessing of an America media that hails these minds as the greatest to ever serve. The most brilliant to come along in years. These are the very failures that have changed their uniforms for suits and ties,exchanged their party affiliation for something more easily swallowed. They have hijacked a major political party in America and consumed the media conglomerate.

The time to take our country back is upon us.It has to be decisive and overwhelming.It must stagger the very institutions these people have infected. It must make them gasp and flee in utter defeat and humiliation.It must so awaken and intimidate them that they never,ever, seek to show their face in public again or  seek office in this country. They must be made to understand their lies and deception are never going to tolerated or shrugged off again. We will stand guard,we will walk the wall and we will answer the call. We will do all this gladly and without complaint,because we must, and now,maybe more then ever,this nation needs us to.

The Bravest

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards;

they simply unveil them to the eyes of men.

Silently and imperceptibly as we sleep,

we grow strong or weak, and at last,

some crisis shows us

exactly what we have become.

– Brooke Foss 19th Century

DEMOCRATS HID DAMNING HEALTH CARE REPORT FROM PUBLIC UNTIL A MONTH AFTER VOTE

By Jim Hoft………Republicans should be screaming about this–
A damning health care report released by actuaries at the Health and Human Services Department was given to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the health care vote. She hid the report from the public until a month after democrats rammed their nationalized health care bill through Congress.

The results from the report were troubling. The report released by Medicare and Medicaid actuaries shows that medical costs will skyrocket rising $389 billion 10 years. 14 million will lose their employer-based coverage. Millions of Americans will be left without insurance. And, millions more may be dumped into the already overwhelmed Medicaid system. 4 million American families will be hit with tax penalties under this new law.

Of course, these were ALL things that President Obama and Democratic leaders assured us would not happen.

The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama’s health care “reform” law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius’s staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.

“The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote,” says an HHS source. “Which is actually the point of having a review like this, you would think.”

The analysis, performed by Medicare’s Office of the Actuary, which in the past has been identified as a “nonpolitical” office, set off alarm bells when submitted. “We know a copy was sent to the White House via their legislative affairs staff,” says the HHS staffer, “and there were a number of meetings here almost right after the analysis was submitted to the secretary’s office. Everyone went into lockdown, and people here were too scared to go public with the report.”

In the end, the report was released several weeks after the vote.

If we had a responsible media this would be headlines in every paper and on every news station for the next week.
In a sane world this would be the scandal of the century.

You are in for a huge surprise if you have fooled yourself into thinking that voting these liars out is going to clean up the mess. If the US media is not included in the clean-up,maybe even being the starting point,it is a useless battle. They lead the charge and hold the influence of deceit. THEY MUST GO.

Justice Roberts Hints He Could Overturn Roe

By: Theodore Kettle….Newsmax….Justice John Roberts last week made it clear that the Supreme Court over which he presides will not hesitate to sweep away its own major constitutional rulings when doing so is necessary to defend America’s bedrock governing document.

The announcement of that guiding core principle means two very big things. First, Roberts and his fellow strict constructionists on the court are now armed and ready with a powerful rationale for overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion ruling if Justice Anthony Kennedy or a future justice becomes the fifth vote against Roe.

Secondly, successfully placing Roberts atop the high court is beginning to look like former President George W. Bush’s most important legacy – a gift that will keep on giving for conservatives for decades.

In last Thursday’s 5-to-4 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling dismantling the McCain-Feingold campaign law, Roberts joined with fellow Bush appointee Justice Samuel Alito to issue a separate concurrence “to address the important principles of judicial restraint and stare decisis implicated in this case.”

While Roberts conceded that “departures from precedent are inappropriate in the absence of a ‘special justification,’” he quickly added that “At the same time, stare decisis is neither an ‘inexorable command’… nor ‘a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision’ … especially in constitutional cases,” noting that “If it were, segregation would be legal, minimum wage laws would be unconstitutional, and the Government could wiretap ordinary criminal suspects without first obtaining warrants.”

Instead, under the “stare decisis” judicial doctrine of respecting past rulings, “When considering whether to re-examine a prior erroneous holding, we must balance the importance of having constitutional questions decided against the importance of having them decided right.” The chief justice declared: “stare decisis is not an end in itself.”

The court’s most senior liberal, Justice John Paul Stevens, even found himself haunted by his own words on the subject of when precedent can be discarded, courtesy of Roberts. In a 1995 dissent, Stevens had argued that returning to the “‘intrinsically sounder’ doctrine established in prior cases” can “better serv[e] the values of stare decisis than would following” some “more recently decided case inconsistent with the decisions that came before it.”

Moreover, when Roberts mentions a need to “curtail the precedent’s disruptive effects” and imagines instances in which a “precedent’s validity is so hotly contested that it cannot reliably function as a basis for decision in future cases,” the “hotly contested” Roe decision, which 37 years ago disrupted the abortion laws of all 50 states, cannot help but come to mind.

He also said a precedent could be targeted for destruction if its “rationale threatens to upend our settled jurisprudence in related areas of law, and when the precedent’s underlying reasoning has become so discredited that the Court cannot keep the precedent alive without jury-rigging new and different justifications to shore up the original mistake.” That uncannily describes Justice Antonin Scalia’s long-held objections to Roe v. Wade, and the unusual joint opinion that shored it up in 1992 in the Casey decision.

What more ambitious undertaking for a chief justice could there be than to define the constraints of stare decisis? Yet clearly it was exactly that kind of leadership Bush was looking for when he chose Roberts.

As White House aide Dan Bartlett told the press the day Bush nominated him for the court in July, 2005, Roberts had “set himself apart in an elite group when it comes to his qualifications.”

Bartlett noted that “this is somebody who graduated with honors, both undergrad and Harvard Law.” But the Bush adviser also pointed to the fact that the former president “likes to size people up himself, make his own judgment” and “make sure the person matched the resume … but also had those innate qualities you’re looking for – the character and temperament and judgment, and, frankly, leadership qualities that you want in the highest court in the land.” Bush had done that during a long visit with Roberts in the White House residence.

Roberts “was class president,” Bartlett pointed out. “He was team captain of the football team, somebody who just exhibited leadership qualities right out of the gate; went to Harvard and really set himself apart there as well, as I said, graduating with honors, as well as being part of the paper there, and doing a lot of things that distinguished himself.”

If Roberts really did just establish clear restrictions on the power of faulty Supreme Court precedents, it might not just mean a mechanism for the eventual conquest of Roe v. Wade, and victory for pro-lifers; a whole series of widely ranging liberal decisions going back to the activist Warren Court era could eventually be in jeopardy too.

Constitutional Contempt

By Walter Williams

At Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Oct. 29th press conference, a CNS News reporter asked, “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Speaker Pelosi responded, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” The reporter said, “Yes, yes, I am.” Not responding further, Pelosi shook her head and took a question from another reporter. Later on, Pelosi's press spokesman Nadeam Elshami told CNSNews.com about its question regarding constitutional authority mandating that individual Americans buy health insurance. “You can put this on the record. That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”

Suppose Congress was debating a mandate outlawing tea-party-type protests and other large gatherings criticizing Congress. A news reporter asks Nancy Pelosi where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to outlaw peaceable assembly. How would you feel if she answered, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” and ignored the question. And what if, later on, someone from her office sent you a press release, as was sent to CNS News, saying that Congress has “broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce,” pointing out that demonstrations cause traffic jams and therefore interferes with interstate commerce?