Obamacare will be at center of high court hearing

Washington Examiner ^ | April 11, 2010 | Michael Barone

[gusopol3]

More important, the public's issue focus has changed. And while the issue of whether to criminalize abortion tended to favor Democrats, the political issues that now raise constitutional questions tend to favor Republicans.

Those are issues raised by the big government programs of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders, in particular by the health care legislation they jammed through Congress despite huge public opposition last month.

[RetiredArmy]

When it hits the Supremes, the 4-4 tie is in Kennedy’s hands. It always is. 4 conservatives, 4 liberal communist dictators and Kennedy. Where he goes is how it goes. Pray he does the RIGHT thing again, as he did on gun control.

[Man50D]

The people are the government, not the White House, Not Congress and not SCOTUS. They operate at the consent of the governed. The people will have the final say as to how we are governed and clearly do not consent to having an unconstitutional, socialist health care agenda shoved down our throats.

[gusopol3]

Romneycare’s implosion and a public reaction to it may scare off a couple of others from the clone Obamacare.

[JLAGRAYFOX]

The Republicans can do permanent damage to the life of the Democrat Party and the destruction Of POTUS Barack Hussein Obama if they play their cards correctly as outlined in this article by Michael Barone. The Bart Stupak resignation is absolute proof that passing “Obamacare” might have saved POTUS Obama for a few months, but it is going to destroy the Democrat Party at the ballot box this coming Novmber, 2010. The house and senate are going Republican and, “Obamacare” will bring down POTUS Obama is short shrift. In listening to Obama, Pelosi and Reid, the Democrat Party rank and file members have destroyed their personal political careers.

[gusopol3]

That’s a great map; hope we get there. Scott Brown proved that national security is still the trump card, so I’m glad dear Sarah waved the cape that Obama blundered after on nuclear policy.

[mapmaker77]

With rinos like graham and lugar and mccain don’t be surprised to see them again snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. These clowns are still more concerned with the DC cocktail party curcuit than with the future of this country

[libstripper]

He also did the right thing in the Citizens United case this year when he wrote the opinon that overturned much of McCain-Finegold. Even more important, the Illegal called him and the other justices out for it at the SOTU. He just might decide to ge a bit of payback when ObamaCare reaches SCOTUS.

[lionheart 247365]

I can’t believe Romney is the SRLCs top pick at this years conference .

[gusopol3]

Organization according to the one brief article I read; besides, they can’t keep the Romneycare debacle covered up for ever, though I’m amazed its failure didn’t get more coverage during the congressional debate. I hate to say it, but I think our conservative journalists are very lazy at times.

[fightinJAG]

One is the constitutionality of the health care bill's mandate to purchase private health insurance. The federal government has never before commanded citizens to buy a commercial product. Could the government command you to buy breakfast cereal?

Obambi will argue that healthcare is *just so important* that it changes the entire constitutional calculus in favor of the federal government's power grab.

I've posted a lot about the individual mandate and won't repeat that here. But Barone's argument points out the absurdity of this line of reasoning. And here's a subject that, unlike breakfast cereal, really could be plugged into the "individual mandate" framework, with the feds making the exact same "national necessity" arguments:

That would be "forced" purchase of mass transit tickets. What if the Marxists in the White House said "there are 45 million Americans who can't afford public transportation or for whom appropriate public transportation is not yet available." And further the Marxists in the White House said, therefore, "to save the economy, level the playing field for the poor, give everybody equal access to jobs, save the planet and reduce the need for foreign oil, lower the deficit, free people from evil 'job-lock,' to be as advanced as Europe, to compete with China, blah blah blah, we need a massive new nation-wide mass transit system; and the only way we can do that and make it 'affordable' to consumers is to require everyone to buy a certain number of fare cards per year -- even if you personally don't need or want fare cards, even if there won't be public transporation in your area for which you can use those fare cards for another, say, 10 years -- and if you don't buy your cards, you get fined and the IRS takes the fine out of your bank account."

Why not?