The Obama Administration Spits in Judge Vinson’s Eye and Other Reactions to Today’s Ruling
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]
Toward the end of my last post analyzing Judge Vinson’s excellent decision striking down the entirety of Obamacare, I wrote the following to explain why there was no injunction:
[T]he court reasoned that a judgment declaring the law to be unconstitutional is sufficient relief to the plaintiffs because “there is a long-standing presumption that officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court. As a result, the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction.” (internal quotation marks removed.) In other words, he felt that the Federal Government would try to obey the law without the court formally ordering its obedience. But believe you me, if the Obama administration ignores this ruling, the court can and certainly will revisit the matter and issue an injunction.
Well, it didn’t take long. Via the Daily Caller:
“We don’t believe this kind of judicial activism will be upheld,” said Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter in a blog post published at WhiteHouse.gov.
Senior administration officials vowed implementation of the law would “proceed apace.”
Well, go ahead, see what happens if you try to implement Obamacare without actually overturning the decision.
And notice that term “activism.” The correct translation when a liberal says it is “a decision I don’t like.” There is no other definition for liberals. They don’t mind cases that overturn precedents, that overturn federal laws, and that invent rights out of thin air. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that the judge’s opinion is not supported by the constitution or precedent—they have no principled objection to that. So their objection is merely to losing.
And meanwhile anonymous White House officials had this to say:
White House officials said that sort of “surpassingly curious reading” called into question Judge Vinson‘s entire ruling.
“There’s something thoroughly odd and unconventional about the analysis,” said a White House official who briefed reporters late Monday afternoon, speaking on condition of anonymity.
That is via Volokh’s David Bernstein who wonders why they were granted anonymity for such inanity. As Jennifer Rubin correctly argues “These are complaints, not legal arguments. And they suggest that the left was totally unprepared for the constitutional attack on their beloved handiwork.” Again, Obama himself was a constitutional law professor. And he was caught by surprise? Shouldn’t he have known this might happen?
Is there a job he is good at?
Meanwhile Ezra Klein makes a feeble attempt to attack the ruling. I would fisk it, but the boys at Powerline already have.
Meanwhile Brian Beutler manages to commit murder against an innocent straw man:
Vinson tossed the entire thing because it lacked a “severability clause,” which would have compartmentalized the legislation itself and forced judges to weigh individual sections on their own merits. But the standard isnot that an unseverable law should be stricken in its entirety.
No, Ferris Bueller Beutler, it is not simply an automatic either/or proposition. Sometimes the court says that one part can be severed. And other times the court says that it can’t be. But as Jennifer Rubin points out, Obama’s own lawyers conceded it couldn’t be severed. Which should end the discussion.
And while most judges are content to label the judge a republican, Think Progress takes the screeching to an additional level, calling him (without citing any evidence) a Tea Party Judge. Or is the new rule that anyone who mentions the Boston Tea Party is a member of the current Tea Party?
Or wait, maybe they mean this kind of Tea Party?
Tell the truth, liberals. You think the modern, political movement called the Tea Party is exactly like this, don’t you?
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
My understanding is that Obama was not a constitutional law professor. He was an adjunct lecturer and I have seen no evidence he knows anything about the US Constitution at all. Indeed, I seem to remember reading that his lectures consisted of subjects more suited to a community organizer. Maybe someone else will be able to confirm that since I am just going from memory.
The one thing the country has going for it is that all of Obama’s legal appointees seem to be as incompetent as he is. But I guess when everything comes down to Justice Kennedy’s Magic Eight Ball anything can happen.
CivilColdWarrior (29afdc) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:23 pmCivil
See my previous analysis. Kennedy will rule against obamacare because it is the end of privacy.
Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:34 pmDear Lord, Civil, he taught Con Law at one of the finest law schools in the country. He wasn’t a tenured professor or anything, because he had a day job, but geez, he wasn’t some fake professor like William Jacobson.
As an aside, how can Aaron claim to be a limited government conservative and still complain about Lawrence v Texas?
Oh, the definition of activism is overturning a legislative consensus by judicial fiat. That’s what happened here. A president was elected to reform insurance and passed a compromise bill and some judge from Pensacola decides its unconstitutional? When it’s Reinhardt doing it, it’s terrifying judicial activism. When it’s this wingut judge….well, he’s not be an activist, just because he argues the last 80+ years of jurisprudence is bad and we should all return to the Lochner era
timb (8f04c0) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:40 pmI will predict here that Court will find the law constitutional by 7-2 or 6-3. Roberts, corporate shill that he is, will not want what comes along with over-turning this law and I think Scalia will surprise you. Only the Catholic Holy Warrior and the Weird Dude are guaranteed votes against it.
timb (8f04c0) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:43 pmwho’s dumber: Ear Leader or the mouth breather’s who defend him on the internet?
discuss…
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:43 pmThe administration — in the ultimate ‘black calling the pot “kettle”‘ (or something like that) move — uses the hated ‘Bush-ism’ “judicial activism,” and timmah is right there to pick up the meme.
Polly wanna cracker?
Icy Texan (4763e3) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:50 pmread the ruling, vinson’s work is clear and powerful and very very good. obviously intended to appeal to the supreme court itself.
by making it a summary judgment and pointing out that the challenges raised by the plaintiffs are most definitely not frivolous, vinson has thrown the left a curveball it was not expecting.
this is truly one of the best days this country has had in a while.
deepelemblues (a78b16) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:52 pmThis is what he taught at Chicago, at least one of his courses, in civil rights law, didn’t insist on
actually reading the key cases from the 19th century, except through the prism of Derrick Bell,
a Marxist law professor;
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30law.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
narciso (e888ae) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:55 pmGee, isn’t Vinson the SECOND Federal District Judge to declare the Individual Mandate unconstitutional?
But of course, that doesn’t count with Timmah, since he can’t (and doesn’t) count.
AD-RtR/OS! (0c4142) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:55 pmnarciso, I wouldn’t rely on Derrick Bell to tell me the sun had come up, since he’d have to have about an 18-hour polemical lead in to the declarative statement that it had, or hadn’t; and by that time, it would be moot.
AD-RtR/OS! (0c4142) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:58 pm____________________________________
corporate shill that he is
As compared with all the ambulance-chasing trial lawyers that the left gives big hugs and kisses to on a regular basis?
As for the current occupant of the White House, everyone should keep in mind his attitude towards, for example, Honduras and its ex-president Manuel Zelaya. I’m referring to the contempt that Barry Soetoro (and, yep, that probably is the guy’s legal name) had for the constitution of Honduras and its legislators who were struggling against a history of strong-arm leaders, vis a vie the arrogant, ultra-liberal Zelaya.
Oh, but “when our heart is in the right place — when we’re so humane and beautiful — when we’re so compassionate — the ends justify the means!!”
Mark (411533) — 1/31/2011 @ 8:58 pmObama was NOT a “Constitutional Law” professor as that term is generally understood and accepted.
He taught a seminar course on voting rights and related constitutional issues.
That is a far cry from being a “Constitutional Law Professor” at a major American law school.
shipwreckedcrew (436eab) — 1/31/2011 @ 9:00 pmTimb:
You certainly seem you have knowledge into people’s psyche that you do not know. It’s not a good argument, but if it makes you happy, go for it.
Checks and balances do work. A whole lot of time they work against what I personally believe, but that doesn’t mean those decisions are incorrect. It simply means that sometimes things happen in ways you don’t like. So it goes.
All of us stupid Constitution lovers have plenty we have to accept.
SCOTUS will decide. Voting, once again, makes a difference.
Ag80 (e03e7a) — 1/31/2011 @ 9:02 pmLike Ezra Klein, timb has a problem understanding the Constitution since it is, like, you know, old, like 100 years old or something.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 1/31/2011 @ 9:13 pmTimb
> As an aside, how can Aaron claim to be a limited government conservative and still complain about Lawrence v Texas?
The courts are limited, too. They can’t amend the constitution, only interpret it. Mind you, I agree with the police. I have long said that any police department that has the time to go after people for engaging in consensual gay sex in privacy and between adults, is a police department ripe for a budget cut. But there is a difference between supporting a policy and making up a right.
> Oh, the definition of activism is overturning a legislative consensus by judicial fiat.
Nope, its just intentionally not following the constitution.
> That’s what happened here. A president was elected to reform insurance and passed a compromise bill
Obama was not elected to reform insurance. And what then do you make of the 2010 election? The election of scott brown?
> just because he argues the last 80+ years of jurisprudence is bad and we should all return to the Lochner era
Except he didn’t really say that.
Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 1/31/2011 @ 9:15 pmSpeaking of Constitutionalists…
AD-RtR/OS! (0c4142) — 1/31/2011 @ 9:18 pmCharles Krauthammer had an interesting take on the renewed interest throughout the land (Thank You, TEA Partiers) in the groundings and meanings of the Constitution, and that that surge of support for Original Meaning will push the Courts into reining in the Leviathan as we have come to know it since the New Deal.
…Charles was a panel member on Special Report today when he made those remarks.
AD-RtR/OS! (0c4142) — 1/31/2011 @ 9:19 pmWhat was wrong with the Lochner era?
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 1/31/2011 @ 9:22 pm> just because he argues the last 80+ years of jurisprudence is bad and we should all return to the Lochner era
Except he didn’t really say that.
Aaron, I think Timb is correct on the fundamental point there. I’m not saying Judge Vinson made any explicit references to it, but if you follow the logic of the leading 20th century cases from the New Deal and afterwards, yes, the mandate is constitutional and Congress can do anything it wants except (as was said of the British Parliament) make a man a woman. Which is why the White House didn’t see this coming. Vinson could have easily decided, with a much shorter opinion, that the mandate was hunky dory.
In the end, declaring the mandate unconstitutional will possibly mean overturning many of those cases, or at the very least seriously undercutting them. Unlike timb, of course, I think that would be a good thing.
kishnevi (a991d1) — 1/31/2011 @ 9:45 pmWell this probably the book end on the other extreme;http://en.wikipedia.or
narciso (e888ae) — 1/31/2011 @ 9:57 pm/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
What is Raw Tea?
Cooter (f1ab34) — 1/31/2011 @ 10:11 pmIt is either tea leaves that have not been processed, or tea leaves that have not been made into tea. 🙂
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 1/31/2011 @ 10:17 pmThis decision was obviously just another messaging issue for the Administration with the judge.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 1/31/2011 @ 10:18 pm“Tell Buffy to chirp me” is my favorite line. It sounds, well, illegal in several states.
NTTIAWWT.
“Raw Tea” is their kiddie style alcoholic beverage. Think Zima, only darker.
“They may be vanilla, but their Labs are chocolate.”
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 1/31/2011 @ 10:23 pmMostly that it never really existed. Lochner was an isolated case, and courts continued to find any reason they could to uphold laws restricting trade. In another way, though, the Lochner era is alive and well; the core reasoning of Griswold, and its progeny Roe v Wade and Lawrence, is based on “substantive due process”, which was invented in Lochner.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/31/2011 @ 10:33 pmOf course, “legislating from the bench” and “judicial activism” are EXACTLY the phrases used by “conservatives” when they don’t like a ruling.
It’s always fun to watch an ox get gored, though – especially when the owner is standing by. And most of all when it’s the guy’s only ox, as one can pretty much say for the paltry reform that is HCR.
Me, I was and still am for single payer, but that would presuppose societal and actuarial sanity like that of a radical socialist such as Otto von Bismarck.
Mork (5890f2) — 1/31/2011 @ 11:22 pmSeparately from Obama’s own lawyers condeding the lack of severability: the original legislation quixotically did not contain a severablity clause!
Linda Starr (7f850a) — 2/1/2011 @ 12:10 amMork – If ObamaCare is Constitutional, as Ann Coulter said, watch Republican legislate that all Americans purchase guns and Bibles. At least they’re less harmful to the economy than ObamaCare.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 12:33 amSkeletor – ahem – Ann Coulter is not exactly what I would call the gold standard of conservative argument, though she arguably sells a lot of inflated gold coin.
How are mandatory insurance for drivers and mandatory Social Security payments for anyone who works subatantially less unconstitutional than what the HCR calls for? “Sovereign citizens” and their shysters aside, no one will take that case anymore.
Well, Skeletor might.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 1:34 amHow are mandatory insurance for drivers and mandatory Social Security payments for anyone who works subatantially less unconstitutional than what the HCR calls for?
Interestingly enough, Social Security is one of the few taxes that we actually see broken out on our paycheck stubs every pay period. Be interesting to see a breakdown of where the rest of it goes, if that was even possible with the last 53 years of deficit spending.
Another Chris (67858a) — 2/1/2011 @ 2:15 amWell, to start with, “mandatory insurance for drivers” a) only affects those who choose to drive and b) has probably an order of magnitude more competition than health insurance.
To point A, driving is not required. You can opt to never drive a car in your life. It isn’t EASY (as I well know), but it is possible. In that case, you are not required to have insurance. The Health Insurance Mandate requires everyone, healthy or sick, to get coverage.
To put it another way – if you choose to drive, part of the requirement is to get a license, and insurance for your car. You can opt out of this by simply not driving. I can not opt out of not living in the United States, and thus the Health Insurance Mandate can not be avoided.
For point B, it is completely legal to get coverage for your car through any number of companies in any state of the Union. If you wish, you can get insurance from a company in California while you live in Florida. This has VASTLY increased competition, and as such the cost for premiums has dropped drastically over the last decade or so. They offer incentive programs, discounts, you name it.
There exists no similar level of competition for Health Insurance. Markets are limited to what sets up shop in your state. This limits competition, thus limiting the power you as a consumer have – if you can choose to take your business elsewhere with little to no hassle, your current provider will at least make token efforts to keep your business (this is why cell phone companies hated the law saying numbers had to be portable between carriers – MANY people stayed simply because they didn’t want the hassle of telling everyone their new number). When you can not easily leave, they have no incentive at all to keep you happy. Customer service hits the crapper, costs stay high, and you stay screwed.
Social Security is also vastly different. To start with, it is an actual tax unlike the penalty for refusing the mandate. Also, Social Security is something that, theoretically, everyone gets equal benefit from. That is to say, anyone who makes it to 65 (or whatever it ends up) gets the same equivalent amount each time the check goes out. That is manifestly different from the benefits two different people would likely derive from Heath Care. One may need a new kidney, a triple bypass, and a host of meds in addition, while the other may never need anything more than the occasional tetanus booster and a flu shot every year.
So if person 2 wishes to not have insurance and just pay for the shots out of pocket, he is penalized in a large way. Person 1, however, reaps a huge benefit from it, on the back of person 2.
Besides, Social Security is a couple trillion in the hole, existing only on current payments from those who work right now. It has been raised and pillaged for decades and is nothing now but IOUs that the government CALLS money, but isn’t really.
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 2/1/2011 @ 3:45 amScott, your insurance company still needs to be licensed by the state you live in to offer policies in that state. It is no different for health or auto insurance.
Vinson will be proven wrong. At a minimum, the indidivual mandate will be found by the Supreme Court to be severable. (The Sarbanes-Oxley Act also had no severability provision and one of its provisions was changed by the Supreme Court: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/business/29accounting.html?_r=1)
Jim (631851) — 2/1/2011 @ 4:43 amHow many times are the leftists going to trot out that auto insurance analogy?
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:00 amMandatory car insurance laws are also mandated by states, not the Federal government, and states are not limited to enumerated powers as the Federal government is.
Why is that so impossible to understand? There is nothing “surpassingly curious” about the idea that there is a limit, somewhere, to the Commerce Clause power.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:01 am#31.
“I can not opt out of not living in the United States, and thus the Health Insurance Mandate can not be avoided.”
Those double negatives are tricky, aren’t they? Apparently you mean you can’t opt not to live here, which is patently false. I’m sure there must be a country or two yet that is starved of angry John Galt types.
Also tough, I guess, are compound words like “cannot”. I cannot see why anyone would insist on spelling it “can not”, though to quit tweaking you, I can quite understand why “Obamacare” (actually a product of the geniuses in the last Congress, but let the misnomer stand) makes you mad. It does me, too – as I said, single payer was the way to go, but the thought of doing something so social and sensible that the Iron Chancellor of Germany would have approved in the 19th century was too much for the panders in Washington, and anyway that would have deprived them of an opportunity to felch campaign money from the ass of the insurance companies in exchange for this huge new corporate welfare program. All in all, a bastard fix for bastards by bastards, and this is one voter who won’t be sorry to watch it implode.
Still, I doubt the “it’s unconstitutional” argument will work. Far more likely to kill it is the double dip recession/depression that’s about to hit.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:02 amVinson is just another activist teabagger.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:03 amSorry, JD, but some of us do believe in the auto insurance analogy. If you don’t have auto liability insurance (or put down a $50,000 bond as is permitted in some states), you’re imposing costs on others. If you don’t have health care insurance, you’re imposing costs on others if you can’t pay for you care.
Jim (631851) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:04 amMork likes arguing with the voices in it’s head, strawpeople, and unicorns.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:05 amVinson is an activist tea bagger. JD. I agree.
Jim (631851) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:07 amThe idea that finding the end of the Commerce Clause power is “judicial activism” is the kind of dishonest hackery one would expect from a vacuous troll like timb.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:07 amSPQR, please point to any one prior Supreme Court decision that holds that the Commerce Clause doesn’t allow for the regulation of inactivity. If there isn’t one, then what Vinson did is judical activism.
Jim (631851) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:12 am#3 Good Lord, as you say, JugEars was an “adjunct”
LeonidasOfSparta (c9c010) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:20 amlecturer at U of C. That is all. That is NOT being a professor. And given his complete LACK of understanding of the Constitution, it is obvious to anyone with one ounce of sense that he “adjunct lectured” about his favorite “topic”– how to make the Constitution a ‘living breathing’ document to be altered at whim. That doesn’t make him an expert in ConLaw or even SLIGHTLY learned…it just makes him a jabberjaw who conned the U of C law school into paying him alot of money to be ignorant and DO NOTHING…kind of like what he does now.
Certainly, the course that Obama taught was a lightweight “survey” course on Con Law topics. He published nothing of substance at any time on the topic and can hardly be called a “scholar”.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:23 am#34 LOL interesting…”a bastard fix for bastards by bastards.”
LeonidasOfSparta (c9c010) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:26 amI think it is safe to say that the whole idiotic ‘bastard fix’ will be DEFUNDED, along with, we can only hope, the EPA and the useless Homeland Security (send that nitwitted Big Sis PACKING please) and many other unelected blackholes sucking the life out of our fair land.
Actually, these idiots can’t see the forest for the trees when they compare FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MANDATED HEALTH INSURANCE to state mandated automobile insurance.
1. The federal gov is strictly limited in its powers by the constitution.
2. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and as a result, the SOVEREIGN STATE, requires that you have insurance to protect others against YOUR negligence.
3. LIFE is a RIGHT, and you cannot be required to purchase anything damn thing just to practice your RIGHT to be alive.
4. Auto insurance can be required since it is a privilege and is RESERVED BY THE STATES AS ONE OF ITS POWERS UNDER THE 10TH AMENDMENT.
Keep this unconstitutonal shit up, and WE THE PEOPLE IN THE SEVERAL AUTONOMOUS AND SOVEREIGN STATES WILL WITHDRAW THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED AND DISSOLVE THIS UNION OF SOVEREIGN STATES. Without the consent of the governed there is no United States of America. Remember this, we are a unique experiment in governing. This is not ONE country, it is a REPUBLIC that is made up of 50 Sovereign entities that can withdraw consent when they want to.
peedoffamerican (3bbc9c) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:27 amFederal judges from Pensacola should refrain from issuing rulings pertaining to the Constitution.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:27 amWhat is striking about that link is he willing to give such short shrift to the key rulings, Dred Scott and Plessy, which were abominations in their
narciso (e888ae) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:36 amown right, while spent time on rather extraneous matters
Jim, horse manure. That Vinson is ruling on a new question does not make it judicial activism.
Well, unless you define it like all liberals do, which is that any decision that overturns a favorite policy is “judicial activism”. That’s the kind of vacuous definition we are seeing from those who have no answer to the basic question: what is the end of the Commerce Clause power?
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:39 am#40.
While I agree that letting the EPA regulate a byproduct of human respiration is overreach, do you really wish to get rid of it altogether? Just let industry decide what effluents belong in which rivers?
Why not rescind the FDA’s authority over food labeling, too? Surely Dinty Moore can be trusted to refrain from jiggering the profits by doubling the percentage of sawdust and rodent esophagi in its
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:41 amAuto insurance and Social Security payments are both in response to activity. The government’s health care mandate requires a penalty for inactivity. To continue with the auto insurance analogy, the government is requiring everyone to purchase auto insurance even if you don’t have a motor vehicle. If you refuse to buy auto insurance, we’ll penalize you with a fine/tax. We don’t care if you drive a car or not; for the plan to work, everybody is forced to buy or pay the fine — no exceptions.
Under such a scenario, the power of Congress is without limit — which is directly in opposition to the restrictions imposed by the Constitution. It’s that simple.
navyvet (db5856) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:41 amWhoops!
“…rodent esophagi in its deelishus stew!”
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:43 amUnless you’re one of the 700+ FOO’s (Friends of Obama) that have been granted an exception. It’s true: some of us are more equal than others.
navyvet (db5856) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:45 amWell I’m glad to see the GOP’s health care program of “don’t get sick” is still viable in the minds of its loyal troops.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:45 amNot sure who said this, but…
> How are mandatory insurance for drivers and mandatory Social Security payments for anyone who works subatantially less unconstitutional than what the HCR calls for?
Mandatory insurance is imposed by states. States have more power over your lives.
As for SS, it’s a tax. The power to tax is unquestioned.
Kish
I have to disagree with this part:
> Congress can do anything it wants except (as was said of the British Parliament) make a man a woman.
The fact is that the supreme court has repeatedly said that there are limits to congress’ power. For instance, in U.S. v. Lopez, the supreme court struck down the gun-free schools act. In U.S. v. Morrison, it struck down the violence against women act.
Not to mention that outside of the commerce context, we have struck down numerous federal acts. Such as in Citizens’ United. But I suspect you mean “in the context of commerce.”
We have not done away with our constitution completely.
Also, given advances in medical technology and federal power, if the decision had gone the other way, maybe congress could have turned a man into a woman. 🙂
Narc
> Well this probably the book end on the other extreme:
http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
Absolutely. And more recently there was Gonzales v. Raich (sp?) dealing with almost the same issue, except the plant was MJ not wheat.
Mork
> are EXACTLY the phrases used by “conservatives” when they don’t like a ruling.
I concede that many conservatives are false believers in constitutionalism. Justice Kennedy is the worst offender in that. But some really do believe in it. For instance, I agree that no police department should be busting gay people for being gay. But I don’t believe the constitution demands that.
Daley
> watch Republican legislate that all Americans purchase guns and Bibles.
The later is probably illegal under the first amendment.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:49 amAh the New Political Class!
Experience: Organizing communities, lecturing part time in a College of Law.
Fred Beloit (3f1b2d) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:49 amQualifications for public office at every level: See above.
Spouse’s qualifications: Reaching out to communities.
References: Reverend Wright of Chicago. Real estate tycoon XXXX.(Name withheld at request of candidate.)
Proof of Citizenship.(Withheld at request of candidate.)
Mork, the Obamacare legislation had a provision that created a risk pool for those with existing conditions this year. They predicted that it would cover more than 300,000 people.
8,000 people applied and those people alone exhausted the funding.
So don’t give me that crap about how Obamacare is working. It isn’t. Its already a failure by its own standards. Obamacare is not extending coverage, its not cutting costs (my own insurance went up 20% this year in part because of additional mandates that I did not need ) and its destroying our Federal and state budgets.
And with the Obama administration already approving more than seven hundred waivers, it is demonstrating the corruption of Democrats rather clearly.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:50 amThat will be a tough f**king argument to make when the government’s own f**king lawyers said that it could not be severed.
Seriously, did any of you dips**ts read the God Damn opinion?
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:50 am#44.
Luck with that, Tex.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:51 amYou know, it is entirely possible that my temper is a tad bit short this morning.
You’d have thought with classes canceled due to a predicted 12-18 inches of snow, I’d be in a better mood.
Maybe I should have slept last night.
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:52 am“Obama himself was a constitutional law professor.”
Written as tho considered fact, no smirk adorned the countenance, no /sarc qualifier?
He was invited to lecture. No transcripts required, no reviews authored, no papers cited.
A total sham.
gary gulrud (790d43) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:53 amSorry I forgot this:
Fred Beloit (3f1b2d) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:56 amEducation: Columbia, Harvard Law. (Details withheld at request of candidate.)
#57 Scott Jacobs:
Not to pick further nits, but you do Realize that Random capitalization is a Reliable sign of mental Breakdown, right?
I hope you have enough stashed away to pay for your own treatment, because it wouldn’t be fair of you to socialize the cost.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 5:59 amShazzbat, Mork, get back in the egg.
orson (e888ae) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:01 am50 and 48– I’ll take my chances on DintyMoore. With OR without FDA ‘oversight’ there will be wierd things in canned products like rat esophagi et al. Eat by the can, die by the can. But I get to make that choice and have alot less fear of DintyMoore and what’s in the can than I have of overbearing, dishonest, bureaucrats.
LeonidasOfSparta (c9c010) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:05 amThere’s NO proof that canned food companies are evil and busily adding sawdust to their products so as to boost profits.
With the litigious nature of our world forget the FDA as the source of “keeping it honest”—- food manufacturers are scared of lawsuits and thus “encouraged” to keep their products clean and rat/sawdust free so as to be loved and cherished by the buying populace.
We don’t need government agencies to “make” businesses honest,especially since it is obvious that government agencies and bureaucrats are prone to heinous levels of dishonesty. Can you say Pigford Settlement? And those who “watch the watchers” (ie Inspector’s General) are under attack by Der Fuhrer and his henchmen.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/obamas_ongoing_war_on_inspecto.html
61. Any truth to the report Soetoro applied for aid as a foreign national at Occidental?
gary gulrud (790d43) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:07 amBtw, consider this an addendum, to that silly survey
from last week;
http://blog.eyeblast.tv/2011/01/breaking-florida-judge-rules-health-care-law-unconstitutional/
orson (e888ae) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:11 amReally, Scott? The “damn” in “God damn” is supposed to be capitalized? I sure hope the Angry Sky Muppet will overlook my impious failure to properly respect His Most Holy Curse.
Care for a bowl of Hot Damns with that coffee, Mister Galt?
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:14 amMork, “Hot” is not capitalized.
Now go troll somewhere else.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:15 amSo, Leonidas, should we just get rid of the labeling laws, too? I mean they’re so onerous, and bad for bidness, and stuff. Why should anyone who occasionally lacks the ability to dish up a hot fresh meal of still bleeding liver of Persian have any expectation of knowing what’s in the can, right? Let them go out and slaughter their own rats.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:21 amSo that’s a no, eh Mork?
Didn’t think so. You have no counter argument.
I am not surprised.
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:22 amThe die is cast, literally every law, executive order bearing the imprimatur of BHO will, in our lifetimes, be scratched out.
How’s that for a legacy?
gary gulrud (790d43) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:22 amMork, are you really that ignorant of how the food industry coopts labeling laws as a form of rent-seeking behavior to control competition?
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:26 amThat was a dumb question. Of course Mork is that ignorant.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:28 amConfused…is the law enjoined or not? What about the 2 decisions FOR the law? How does that work? Is this only at the state level or is it at the federal? What happens during the inevitable appeal?
Not being a lawyer I’d appreciate if someone explained the actual process. In English.
JEA (2a1ff2) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:31 amguys, please take this down a notch. let’s disagree without name calling.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:32 amI think the HCR law should be declared unconstitutional because of civil rights violations. It is obviously a good law, but does not cover Congress. Members of Congress should not be discriminated against (at least not in this instance), as well as unequal enforcement across all people.
If they want to make mandates for all, make it all.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:35 amI’ll stop the name calling when Mork grows a pair and answers my argument at #30.
Not one second before.
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:36 amOoh, threats. Next Scott’s little deity will Damn me.
SPQR, enlighten me: how does knowing what’s in that can reduce competition? Lemme guess – Grizzly Mama Soup Co. can’t just say “made of all the wholesome good Bible stuff that Sarah feeds Piper” and leave it at that.
How unfair.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:44 amMork has mastered BUNNIES !!!!!
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:54 amMethinks the Trollbot needs to actually answer Scott’s questions or admit to being beclowned forever.
Dmac (498ece) — 2/1/2011 @ 6:56 amMork, enlightening you can take years. The government’s rules on labeling do not merely require one to disclose what is in food, but also keep one from disclosing anything outside of the boundaries. And require the manufacturer to only use approved terms and labeling. Just as an example, the FDA does not require dairies to label milk containing rbST hormone or rGBH and at times regulations have prohibited dairies from claiming that their products do not have such additives. In such ways, industries use regulations to restrict their competitors from claiming advantages. Likewise, the testing and certification costs of things like “organic” as a label can be a barrier to entry and reduce competition.
Thinking that labeling laws have no such effects is extraordinarily naive.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:00 amI’ll take that beclowning and pass it over to you, Dmac. The Dread Scott asked no questions – he gave me an Ayn Randian lecture. I yawned and poked fun. Get over it.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:01 amYes, Obama knows constitutional law.
Mork (e2d13a) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:04 amSocialized medicine with healthcare mandates were first implemented by the founding fathers of America in 1798, signed by president John Adams.
Basically, Mork does not understand the difference between the role of the Federal and State governments, the difference between auto insurance and health insurance, severability, and basically anything else. It is just going to run around, much like kmart, screaming LOOK AT ME !!!!
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:05 amwait, didn’t lawrence v. texas say you had a right to man dates?
(sorry awful pun, but i couldn’t resist.)
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:06 amNo, it’s more like ‘look squirrel’.Now to be serious for a minute. Obama realized ‘single payer’
narciso (e888ae) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:06 amwas the goal, but he knew it wasn’t achievable in the short run, so he went for the Fabian approach, which were the exchanges, but they failed in much
the same way as Hillary’s Alliances, outlined in
‘No Exit, did 16 years ago. As Judge Vinson, rather pointedly indicates, the individual mandate is not
indispensible to health care reform, just this bill.
AW – Yes, but you do not have the right to take my money to pay for your man date. Kmart is getting aroused just thinking about it.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:07 am” Jim” and “master” eat boogers.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:08 amThe idea that only the government can guarantee safe food is rather blatant example of ignorance. Private certification efforts, such as kosher certifications, have long existed and have been more successful at giving consumers confidence regarding the content of their food.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:09 amMaster, why is it that you show up now with a long debunked talking point?
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:10 amSPQR
> Master, why is it that you show up now with a long debunked talking point?
It seems rather slavish of him, doesn’t it.
(sorry can’t help myself)
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:11 amSPQR: Interesting. I could swear I’ve just recently seen milk claiming it had no growth hormones in it. So are you saying that this statement was once prohibited but now isn’t?
Big surprise; regulations can be misused. They can also change.
Unless you’re making the tried-and-true libertardian argument that government regulation is always teh big eevul, what exactly is your point? Is that what you’re claiming?
I think you’ll be hard pressed to find even enough people to form a mini-cult who think that labels are awful and we should trust to lawsuits to keep the pig placenta out of our vegan chili.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:12 amSingle payer advocate, overall douchenozzle, vegan, aggressively ignorant. SHOCKA
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:15 amMork, that regulations could be misused was a surprise to you. See up thread where you express disbelief. And your misrepresentation of my point only reinforces your lack of credibility.
You really are not very good at this “logic” thing.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:15 amAaron,
If my talking point is debunked, why are you sufficiently threatened and so cowardly as to keep blocking my IP and moderating my comments?
Unprecedented!
Master (ed20e2) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:16 amWilliam Yelverton, Professor of Dishonesty at Middle Tennessee Stte University, is a midget racist hilljack that has a fondness for underage goats.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:18 amDamn! See what happens when one stops to watch the snow here in West Texas? (On the same day when Denver hits an ALL-TIME LOW temp; thanks, AlGrope!) A new troll — Mork the Dork — surfaces and I miss out on all the fun. 🙁
Icy Texan (4763e3) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:18 amQuoting a moon bat leftist at Salon is definitive.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:19 amNBo, just quoting the legislation of the founding fathers of America… see, the teabaggers really aren’t like the founding fathers and they really hate the constitution.
Master (ed20e2) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:20 amBill first said it so it must be true!!!!!!!! You should stick to the skin flute, Yelverton. Thinking does not seem to work for you.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:26 amI think you’ll be hard pressed to find even enough people to form a mini-cult who think that labels are awful and we should trust to lawsuits to keep the pig placenta out of our vegan chili.
— One thinks that Mork the Orc has no problem whatsoever finding enough people to be in his ninny-cult.
Icy Texan (4763e3) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:26 amIt is as though Billy Yelverton is proud of being banned for aggressive dishonesty, and sock puppetry second only to all of the Gleenwalds and Hiltzk.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:28 amQuestion…
What do John McCain, Mitt Romney, Orin Hatch and Tommy Thompson have in common? Well, they’re all conservative Republicans. What else?
They all supported health insurance mandates at one time.
Master (5fe805) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:35 am== Rubin: “And they suggest that the left was totally unprepared for the constitutional attack on their beloved handiwork.”==
Well, duh. They had to have the states’ lawsuits (and yesterday’s ruling) so they could “see what was in it”. Do I have to waltz in here at comment one hundred, in the middle of a blizzard, and splain it to you?
elissa (d23327) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:40 amWorthing the coward
…commented an individual using multiple sockpuppets and various aliases in order to avoid detection. Zamfir’s none too bright, as always.
Dmac (498ece) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:42 am“(The Sarbanes-Oxley Act also had no severability provision and one of its provisions was changed by the Supreme Court: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/business/29accounting.html?_r=1)”
Jim – False analogy. The government did not argue with SOX as it did in Vinson’s court that the invalidation of one provision invalidated the whole law, did it?
“Sorry, JD, but some of us do believe in the auto insurance analogy.”
Jim – Sorry about your tender feelings, but some of us also feel providing extended unemployment benefits without paying for them with cuts elsewhere imposes a cost on us. Maintaining the status quo rather than imposing an unconstitutional solution on people is not unreasonable. Constitutional solutions were offered which were ignored.
“SPQR, please point to any one prior Supreme Court decision that holds that the Commerce Clause doesn’t allow for the regulation of inactivity.”
Jim – I think the onus is on you to point out a precedent for pointing out precedent for regulating inactivity. Sorry.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:43 amSince federal spending authority runs out very shortly, and yet another continuing resolution will be required to fund the government, couldn’t the Republicans insert a provision in the continuing resolution prohibiting the Justice Department from spending any federal money on defending ObaminableCare on appeal? 🙂
The curious Dana (3e4784) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:43 amI yawned and poked fun.
Then Mork ran down to his parent’s basement with a month’s supply of Jergens.
Dmac (498ece) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:43 am“Health care mandates were once a good idea, when Republicans proposed the idea. They were for it before they were against it.”
Yelverton – What is your point?
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:45 amExcuse me. Did someone upthread call McCain, Romney and Hatch conservative Republicans?
elissa (d23327) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:47 amScott
you can challenged mork and keep his feet to the fire without it getting personally insulting. several comments have been moved into the “pending” box. feel free to appeal to patterico if you disagree.
Mork/Master
first, you were not being blocked intentionally. the real problem was the spam filter was interpreting your links as attempts to sell us crud.
please use your regular handle, although my guess is you used “master” because you thought I was censoring you. the block list on this site is actually really short and its for much more egregious behavior than anything you did. Still i would appreciate it if you switched back to your regular handle.
As for the substantive question about John Adams law, the article is frankly dishonest. the plan was simply this. ships were taxed according to the number of sailors. then that tax was used to build hospitals to treat the sailors. It is frankly no different than your local community building a hospital and paying for it–including patient care–out of your taxes. that is a world of difference from forcing you to buy health coverage from a private party. this was all hashed out in the first thread on this decision.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:49 ambtw, mork/master, my suggestion is to cool it with the links for now, to avoid being spam filtered. and feel free to email me when it happens in the future.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:51 amAW – Which of it’s 93829174893754 regular handles would you like William Yelverton to use?
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:54 amJD
mork doesn’t appear to be yelverton, but i will look into it.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:55 amMork/Master – Democrats were for the war in Iraq before they were against it.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:55 amQuestion…
What do John McCain, Mitt Romney, Orin Hatch and Tommy Thompson have in common? Well, they’re all conservative Republicans. What else?
They all supported health insurance mandates at one time.
the ideas of “at one time” and what a conservative are truly escape Willie the racist hilljack.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:55 amHere’s one for Morkie to show just how safe the gubmint will keep us with its regulations. What a great protecor the gubmint is.
Is it true that a certain amount of dried cockroach is allowed in making chocolate?
Answer: Not only cockroach, but many different types of insects and not just in chocolate!
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set limits “…to establish maximum levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods for human use that present no health hazard.” Such unavoidable defects include insect fragments in our food.
According to the FDA web site: The maximum level of defects in chocolate is an average of “60 or more insect fragments per 100 grams when six 100-gram subsamples are examined OR any one subsample contains 90 or more insect fragments.”
If you don’t mind getting “grossed out,” you can also go to the FDA web site to find out how many insect eggs, rodent filth, and mold are allowed in other foods. However, I urge you to be prepared for what you will find out!!
I prefer my chocolate roach free, thank you. Now the real question will be, just how many people will the gubmint allow doctors to misdiagnose, mistreat, and send to death camps before they step in and protect us.
MINDY (3bbc9c) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:55 amAW – I did not mean Mork. I was referring to “master”.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:56 amJD
master is mork, i am certain of that.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:57 am“They all supported health insurance mandates at one time.”
And the idea was dropped after it was pointed out it was unconstitutional if imposed federally on a national basis. States obviously differed.
Rationality is not hard.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:58 amtest
peedoffamerican (3bbc9c) — 2/1/2011 @ 7:58 amThen they are both Yelverton, IP swapping again. I say that because that last flurry from Yelverton/not anyone’s master was one of his standard lines of BS. And, he responded to me by name when I called him out on his cowardice.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:01 amJohn McCain and Mitt Romney are conservative Republicans?
You should try out for American Idol. Maybe that new, cool judge will sing some of his own lyrics back to you: “I’m just your slave, your master’s bait.“
Icy Texan (4763e3) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:03 amNope, Aaron. Sorry to disappoint. Mork is Mork, not Master. If you ban Mork he will not sneak in under another name. Nor does he double-post with socks.
Try not to imitate Charles Johnson too much. You lack his patented Correlator Tool, and paranoia becomes him better.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:04 amDid you run out of your hand lotion supply already?
Dmac (498ece) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:09 ammork
sorry, then. and master goes back into moderation.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:11 amHatch has set the record straight on the revisionist history of the left:
“To be clear, I supported this alternative to President Clinton’s massive federal takeover of the American health-care system, because my number-one priority was the defeat of yet another big-government assault on health care that the people of Utah overwhelmingly opposed. It’s that simple.
In the intervening years, I went back and carefully examined, in close consultation with constitutional experts, the legal problems with many of the bills being supported at the time. This needed to be done, because of the hasty nature of the debate which was thrust upon us in 1994. It is simply a fact that Congress has never imposed this kind of mandate before. We concluded, as would any intelligent scholar of the Constitution, that this federal mandate requiring Americans to either purchase health insurance or face a punitive tax exceeds the authority the Constitution has given to Congress.
I have gone to great lengths on the Senate floor, in newspaper columns, and elsewhere to explain my conclusions, because I believe that this is a very important debate. Something, I might add, this administration has not even begun to do because they don’t seem to care whether the proposals they support are Constitutional or not…..
It’s regrettable that instead of examining the legality of their health-care monstrosity, the administration and its allies are simply going on a smear campaign.”
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:12 amicy
maybe “i’ll never be your beast of burden…”
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:12 amSeriously, Aaron, I have never posted here except as Mork, and certainly not as Master. I don’t go in for argumenta ad auctoritates, nor for “proving” things with links, as you will see if you compare my posts with Master’s.
I will never post here under an other name but Mork. Word of honor.
A retraction would be nice.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:12 amMork speak about Mork in third-person. Lend revelence and intellectual heft to Mork arguments. Nanu-Nanu! Shazbut. Fly, be free!
Icy Texan (4763e3) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:15 am…a thought about “Continuing Resolutions”:
I think we should seriously consider a Constitutional Amendment speaking to such;
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:17 amin that, any CR would require a specified percentage reduction in authorized funding for the period newly authorized.
My gut feeling is that 5% is a good starting point!
For the record, I don’t think Mork and the Yelverton thing are the same. Unless they share the same IP. Then it would just be even more creepy than normal. They have distinctly different personas. So, unless we are adding multiple personality disorder schizophrenia to the list of his attributes. Mork seems like a “special” kind of imbecile.
JD (4b0f2e) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:24 amMork – The Individual Mandate is the most unpopular provision of ObamaCare and Obama campaign against Hillary over its necessity. The radical left is not surprised over challenges to its constitutionality since this was all raised before in the 1990s. They don’t really care since their eal goal, as caught on video many times, is single-payer health care.
The faux outrage is all smoke and mirrors and the revisionist history that the mandate was a GOP idea is complete BS put out there by the administration’s propaganda arm. It is no surprise that good little Obamabots immediately have lapped it up and are parroting it as the approved narrative.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:25 am“A retraction would be nice.”
Mork – Good faith debate would be nicer.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:27 ammork
> A retraction would be nice.
i thought what i said counted, but okay, consider this a retraction. i got confused and thought it was you. my apologies.
and maybe it didn’t come across, but i wasn’t mad at you when i thought you were master. but that is moot, because you weren’t.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:28 am#31 there is no severability clause written into the ObamaCare bill. (Part of that whole “Let’s pass this bill to find out what’s in it” or what is NOT in it, as the case may be.LOL. Good idea, Stretch. Forcing this into being without a sev-clause is its deathsentence. That old windbag may have done a good thing afterall.)
LeonidasOfSparta (c9c010) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:32 amThus if the individual mandate is jettisoned, the lack of severability causes the whole Bill to go with it.
Furthermore the “individual mandate” portion was supposed to be the vehicle by which the HHS planned to fund the rest.
So, for argument’s sake, let’s say that the SCOTUS doesn’t “get” the absence of the severability clause and deep-6’s the individual mandate. They are, in essence, defunding it.
I am not an Obamabot. As a proponent of an honest single-payer system from the get-go, I found the whole charade disgraceful, and the notion that it’s a placeholder for eventual single payer is laughable. I like my eevul soshulizm straight.
Also, I lost respect for Obama when he accepted the Nobel “You’re A Better Class of Warlord Than George Bush” Piss Prize.
Find a new pigeonhole for me, please. This one is too narrow.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:36 amThanks, Aaron.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:37 amSo basically, you don’t think the leftist Obumblef@ck is left enough.
JD (109425) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:55 amMork isn’t imdw or Yelverton. And sometimes Mork’s a little rough around the edges.
but the main villain in this are the two jerks who steal people’s names, making us a little paranoid about who we’re talking with. They hated the idea of constructive debate, so they threw a wrench in that machine.
A minor sin compared to their other actions.
Anyway, Mork clearly isn’t insane. It would take years of therapy and medication for Yelverton to be able to get to the Mork level.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:55 amHey, glad to see you, JD.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:55 ambtw, I’m not endorsing anything Mork’s saying. Obviously, right?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:57 amTo use a Star Wars analogy, the individual mandate,
narciso (e888ae) — 2/1/2011 @ 8:59 amis ‘that exhaust port’ on the Death Star, it’s the key flaw that undermines the main structure, utterly
#137:
Yeah. I’m thinking the German system put in place by that notorious leftist Otto von Bismarck in the 19th century would be better.
Call Coulter and have her mark me down in the Traitors Ledger.
Mork (345b56) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:01 am… that notorious leftist Otto von Bismarck …
Mork, do you really think that your cartoonish versions of the political spectrum are an argument?
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:17 amComment by Mork — 2/1/2011 @ 8:36 am
135. I am not an Obamabot.
— Your plausible denial program is working just fine.
As a proponent of an honest single-payer system from the get-go, I found the whole charade disgraceful, and the notion that it’s a placeholder for eventual single payer is laughable.
— As a proponent of ‘honesty’ on the part of the guvmint, you are quite laughable.
I like my eevul soshulizm straight.
— Yeah! None of this namby-pamby pretense of ‘freedom from guvmint control’ for you.
Also, I lost respect for Obama when he accepted the Nobel “You’re A Better Class of Warlord Than George Bush” Piss Prize.
— Yeah well, Seinfeld, the tv show about nothing, won awards too. Would you feel better if they change the name to the “Best Empty Suit/Empty Promises” prize?
Find a new pigeonhole for me, please. This one is too narrow.
Icy Texan (958677) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:24 am— What do we look like, real estate agents? Go find your own home . . . under a bridge.
Daley, Vinson claims that the government said the mandate could not be separated, but I haven’t seen any arguments in any briefs where the government took that position. Do you have a link to where the government actually argued that position?
And if there are no cases saying that the government can’t regulate inactivity, but other cases saying that the government can broadly regulate interstate commerce and the things affecting them, then, yes, Vinson is properly described as a “activist judge”.
Jim (631851) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:39 am“140.To use a Star Wars analogy”
Ewoks are preparing huge blowout party June 2012 to celebrate Kennedy’s majority opinion in support of federalsim. Be there or be square.
An effin’ big deal.
gary gulrud (790d43) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:42 amA little late to the party, but for AD, I just couldn’t resist. Man, I was impressed with your ability to count to 2! Are you as impressed with my ability to count to 12? Because 12 lawsuits against the ACA have failed and been dismissed.
In cases that actually arrived at arguments, 2 Federal judges have upheld the ACA. But, you didn’t hear them about them here, did you? You might want to get out more.
timb (449046) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:49 am“As a proponent of an honest single-payer system from the get-go,”
Mork – Funny, so is Obama, but he couldn’t get everybody to go that far just yet. ObamaCare is the Camel’s nose under the tent as everyone knows.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:56 amWall, Eye-see Tuxan, cornsidah me fisked.
LOL. Why don’t you guys just secede already, you cattleless hats?
Mork (77f326) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:59 am“Because 12 lawsuits against the ACA have failed and been dismissed.”
timb – I saw that on the White House website but have no idea what they are referring to. You got any links?
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:59 amNo, you don’t want to SAY that you are attempting to deny Supreme Court precedent for the last 80 years, because you either don’t know it or don’t want to know. Jesus, Raich was 5 years ago and covered, basically, the same ground Commerce Clause jurisprudence has followed since Wickard (1942).
throwing the ACA over because Congress applied a tax to people who refused to get health insurance is ignoring precedent stretching back 80 years and returning us to Lochner. I made the mistake of believing you had thought this through.
timb (449046) — 2/1/2011 @ 9:59 amUnlike Daley, however, Tim got in an A- in a Con Law class taught by a conservative, so Tim probably knows more about the Constitution than Daley does.
timb (449046) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:04 amDaley, damn you for being nice, but here’s a link you can use to find the two of them. Warning: liberal website. Normally, i know you wouldn’t tread there, but it’s just an amalgam of links to the court cases
timb (449046) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:08 amYou made a similar argument about the 9th circuit.
I don’t know if this is just beyond you, but if a lawsuit doesn’t reach the merits, it doesn’t matter if it ‘failed’ in the context of constitutionality or the law generally.
You’re pretending you’ve made a point that you haven’t. Obamacare is 2-2, not 12-2. Try to keep up.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:10 amMork, don’t lose hope. A sign that you are right on all issues is when that douche SPQR says you’re wrong. For goodness sake, this is a guy who belongs to a group which claims cigarettes don’t cause cancer. Argue with the bright ones ones if you want, but ignore him.
BTW, this place is a heckuva lot nicer since dj left.
timb (449046) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:10 amtimb, still lying like the con artist you are, I see.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:15 amReally, Dustin? Look, I’m still proud of you fro standing up to that bully Goldstein. Don’t go embarrassing yourself by tackling issues you don’t know anything about.
Losing a case because you have no standing to bring the action is losing it. In fact, there is a chance, albeit remote, that the Supreme Court will dismiss this nonsense over the ACA because no one has been “hurt” by the mandate.
Still, I’ll go ahead and imagine that Orin Kerr, noted conservative legal scholar, finds both Vinson’s and Hudson’s reasoning unpersuasive.
As for the 9th circuit, I quoted from the da*n article. I didn’t even analyze it; just pointed out what the reporter said.
timb (449046) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:16 amI was taught Con Law, by a liberal, who insisted whenever possible to read the source material, and
narciso (e888ae) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:17 amconstruct a proper determination of case law
there are lots of reasons to dismiss a case. one, for instance, is ripeness. the court can basically dismiss if it feels the case is not “ripe” for resolution. which has nothing to do with whether the person would win.
Vinson’s decision was not the end all be all. that will be in the S.C. but vinson’s decision is important because frankly it is persuasive. and that should make those who support obamacare very nervous.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:25 amNo, you didn’t quote, you actually completely misunderstood it, as I explained in that thread. The fact that the Supreme Court cannot respond to the vast majority of the 9th’s cases doesn’t change the fact that, of the cases the Court does respond to, the 9th is by far the most overturned. The 9th responds to 6000 cases a year, the Supreme Court 200.
You pretended something you didn’t even understand (or were lying about) was the ‘salient point’, when really, it’s just a talking point for people who don’t understand the topic.
Those aren’t related issues. Let me restate my point yet again. Only 4 cases have attempted to resolve constitutionality. 2 of them have said Obamacare is not constitutional. Many cases have not gotten to the merits. It’s like suing, say, FDR, for interning the Japanese, and having your case thrown out because it’s not ripe and you lack standing… that doesn’t mean interning the Japanese is constitutional. It didn’t reach the merits.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:26 amAnd there is timmah’s 20 minutes of anger, hatred, and dishonesty.
JD (d56362) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:26 amI could take this a step further. I personally saw hundreds of cases that names Bush as a defendant and sued on the basis of the Iraq war. And yet all of these cases failed to say the Iraq war was illegal.
Under timb’s logic, that’s powerful evidence that the Iraq war was legal. Thousands to zero! Of course, it’s really just static.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:29 amtimb – Your “conservative” professor declined to address the administration’s arguments:
“I do not discuss the other constitutional arguments about the individual
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:36 ammandate, most notably the claim that the requirement is supported by the taxing
power. If courts conclude that the regulation of inactivity is impermissible under
the Commerce Clause, they are not, in my view, going to conclude that the same
inaction can be reached through the imposition of taxes or penalties.”
Sigh. We’ve already dealt with the sailor’s health insurance law of 1798, but just in case Mork missed it, here’s the summary:
1. The international and coastal shipping industries are directly under Congress’s control, and always have been.
2. If a sailor didn’t want to pay the tax or get the benefits, all he had to do was a) work in some other industry, or b) get work on a foreign-flagged ship that was not licensed to engage in the coastal trade. There is no constitutional right to be a sailor on a USA ship.
3. There was no mandate to buy a product. It was a straight out tax, which went to fund a government-provided benefit. While socialised health care is anathema to libertarians, the constitution does not actually prohibit it. At least, not as it’s currently interpreted.
Milhouse (e7588c) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:39 am“Normally, i know you wouldn’t tread there, but it’s just an amalgam of links to the court cases”
timb – Thank you for the links. You know I have no problems visiting liberal sites.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:40 amAlright you’re really becoming like this guy,
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0088053/
narciso (e888ae) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:44 amtimb – Washington Monthly banned me for disturbing their echo chamber by asking questions. The link you provided gets us to the 2-2 for federal decisions. I want to know the source for the 12 reference on the White House site. Are they just making shit up or are those just decisions about small potatoes?
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 10:45 amJim, above at 36, explains the key fallacy in the “car insurance mandate” retort liberals like to trot out: that legal car insurance mandates cover liability to OTHERS, not yourself. The government can always require you to act in ways that reduce the cost of your actions to society at large.
But Jim then goes on to take a position that suggests your failure to have health insurance hurts others because it imposes a cost on them when you become ill.
Jim’s reasoning shows us how government interference in the market disrupts our intuitive thought processes and causes us to take logical leaps that don’t stand up to reasoned analysis.
Simply put, Jim assumes that there is a universal duty to offer care to others in distress, some sort of inescapable innate response that would exist regardless of social expectation, like the duty to eat and breathe. There is no such duty to care. Only an ethical obligation rooted in reason and fellowship.
Although he’s maligned by conservatives with regularity, a brief reading of Rousseau would do everyone a lot of good. My ethical obligation to you is only guaranteed insofar as I trust that your ethical obligations to me will be upheld. If the government keeps stomping on the social contract we call a Constitution, my ethical obligations to our society grow ever more tenuous.
Or more clearly put: if you steal my money, why should I care about your health? If our laws assume we don’t have a conscience, don’t be surprised when we act without conscience.
Cooter (f1ab34) — 2/1/2011 @ 11:12 amCooter, it’s all those motorcyclists who become brain-damaged in accidents because they failed to wear a helmet (except where they did) and don’t have insurance and have to go on Medicaid/Welfare, and the insurance company of the driver that pulled out in front of them was a sham and has no assets, and ….
[FTFY, Aaron]
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/1/2011 @ 11:19 amAbout the only similarities between auto insurance and health insurance is the word insurance.
JD (ac5b1a) — 2/1/2011 @ 11:22 amCooter – Liberals just love their strawmen. Since Obama clearly implied in his WTF SOTU he thinks all our money belongs to the government and anything he lets us keep is a gift, if you begin with that attitude about government rather than what the Founders intended, in a very twisted way I suppose it makes sense.
Ask not what you can do for your country but whine incessantly about what your country needs to do for you (preferably with other peoples’ money)!!!!!
The progressive motto.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 11:45 amThe fallacy in comparing the mandate in this abomination and state requirements for auto liability insurance is simply that it is the equivalent of comparing a tamale to a zebra.
JD (ac5b1a) — 2/1/2011 @ 11:47 amExactly AD-RtR/OS! You’re right.
That’s why when I ride my bike I wear a helmet. Not because the government tells me to, but because I don’t want someone else to have to scrape my brains up off the pavement.
It’s called personal responsibility. If we instilled it in our children at an early age, we would never hear about nonsense like Obamacare.
It’s a chicken/egg situation. Liberals claim we need government mandated health-care because we don’t take care of ourselves or each other. But we don’t take care of ourselves or each other because the liberals keep teaching everyone that it’s the government’s responsibility, not our own.
Cooter (f1ab34) — 2/1/2011 @ 11:53 amJD – My tamales have stripes, just like a zebra.
Zee grill marks, zay are perfekt!
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/1/2011 @ 11:57 amDaley, Zeeba has gril markks too, just liek tomalay.
– Bob & Larry
Milhouse (d84b40) — 2/1/2011 @ 4:51 pm“America’s Detractor Laureate”?
IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (c9dcd8) — 2/2/2011 @ 3:33 amOK, we’ll give you that one…
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 2/2/2011 @ 4:32 amCooter, I’m scratching my head over this:
There is no such duty to care. Only an ethical obligation.
Doesn’t an ethical obligation entail a duty?
I understand that there’s no legal duty, in that this isn’t the sort of thing that one can be punished by law for not doing.
But: if my ethics mean anything, my ethical obligations carry duty with them.
aphrael (9802d6) — 2/2/2011 @ 8:44 amand the insurance company of the driver that pulled out in front of them was a sham and has no assets
I’m having a hard time not reading your comment as sarcastic, but: ISTM this could be a real problem, and is one of the underlying justifications for state regulation of insurance agencies. I mean, it’s one thing to say that the buyer of insurance should research the financial viability of his insurance company (although I’m skeptical that the average person has the skill to pierce the veil of the complex corporate financial structure). But it’s an entirely different thing to say that the not-at-fault person in an accident should bear the risk that the at-fault person’s insurance company is asset-free.
But: if the at-fault person has bought insurance that can’t/won’t comply with the obligation to pay, what recourse does the not-at-fault person have?
aphrael (9802d6) — 2/2/2011 @ 8:47 amLawsuit.
If lawyers are willing to sue for millions for a lost pair of pants…
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 2/2/2011 @ 11:19 amMichael E: right, and a successful lawsuit against someone who doesn’t have the means to pay the judgment is worthless.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 2/2/2011 @ 12:10 pm“what recourse does the not-at-fault person have?”
aphrael – The person goes to the State Insurance Commissioner who reviews the claim. If it’s valid, they get involved and may ultimately threaten the insurer’s license over nonpayment of a valid claim. Legitimate insurance companies hate having the insurance department sicced on them.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/2/2011 @ 12:27 pmDaleyrocks: hence my claim that the problem “is one of the underlying justifications for state regulation of insurance agencies.” 🙂
My thesis is that absent state regulation of insurance agencies, fly-by-night insurance providers represent a substantial risk to innocent parties in traffic accidents.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 2/2/2011 @ 1:40 pm“My thesis is that absent state regulation of insurance agencies”
aphrael – State insurance Departments license both insurance agents and insurance companies. Both can have their licenses stripped for various forms of misconduct and insurance companies can be forced to cease writing new policies due to unsound financial condition. Guarantee funds are in place for certain lines of coverage to protect policyholders for claims against insolvent insurers in certain insurance lines.
Regulation is no guarantee against outright fraud, which has been more endemic to certain lines such as nonstandard (high risk) auto. One of my favorites is when an insurance agent creates a hip pocket insurance company. He collects premiums, issues fake certificates of insurance to the insured, but never sends premiums on to an insurance company. If a claim is ever made, he either pays it out of pocket or denies it. The scams are usually uncovered when somebody calls up the insurance company and says I’ve got a COI with the following policy number. The company turns around and finds they never issued the policy. Good stuff.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/2/2011 @ 1:52 pmSince when did insurance companies qualify as those who do not have the means to pay the judgment?
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 2/2/2011 @ 8:55 pm“Since when did insurance companies qualify as those who do not have the means to pay the judgment?”
Michael – Insurance companies are declared insolvent by regulators and told to stop paying claims all the time. A legal judgment would just get in line with other claimants.
daleyrocks (479a30) — 2/2/2011 @ 9:06 pm