Free Republic

True, the Halbig case, if it makes its way to the Supreme Court, will present an opportunity for Chief Justice John Roberts to redeem himself from his abominably activist salvation of Obamacare. But more important, it will be an opportunity for the high court to reaffirm this nation's commitment to the rule of law. In Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that under the Affordable Care Act federal health insurance subsidies are available for policies purchased only on state exchanges and not those purchased on the federal exchange. If the Supreme Court takes the case, it...

We rely on the Supreme Court to defend the Constitution from the endless assaults on it that chip away our liberty. Too bad Supreme Court Justices don’t have a higher opinion of the document. Ruth Bader Ginsberg has denounced it, recommending instead the socialist constitution of South Africa. The odious Stephen Breyer appears to attack it at every opportunity (e.g., here, here, and here). Now we hear this from swing vote Anthony Kennedy: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking at the annual conference of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Monterey, waxed eloquent on the deficiencies of the...

Why there’s really no chance President Obama will be able to appoint another Justice to the bench, regardless of what happens in November. It’s a question that’s roiled the liberal universe for years: Why won’t 81-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg resign from the Supreme Court and give President Obama the chance to pick her successor, in case the Senate turns Republican after the mid-terms? Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, one of the left’s jurisprudential heroes, had a ready answer to that question when it was posed to him at the University of California Santa Barbara late last month....

It’s not very often when one man, liable for the most destructive decision in a nation’s ideological history, is presented with an opportunity to eradicate his greatest transgression: empowering a socialist leviathan that became the greatest Trojan horse of excessive government in our history. The real question is, after an appeals court ruling struck down key components of the law and dealt John Roberts a temporary stay of stupidity, will he once again abandon 225 years of proven checks and balances, or will the Chief Justice inexplicably pardon Obamacare for a second time and reward those who lied about its...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … unless they really want to. That’s how Democrats interpret the First Amendment. hobby lobby scotus protest Part of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its liberal allies’ big government agenda was rejected in the Hobby Lobby decision after “several unpersuasive arguments” before the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago, yet it appears that they never read the opinion of the court because they keep making the same sorry arguments. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) sponsored a bill last week titled the Protect Women’s...

The White House says it’s not worried about a possible retirement by Ruth Bader Ginsburg or any other Supreme Court justice. Speculation on the high court’s next vacancy has centered on the 81-year-old Ginsburg, who has had health problems. Some on the left have openly worried it could be tough for the Obama administration to fill a vacancy, especially if the GOP wins back the Senate this fall.

Spurred on by the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby ruling, Eden Foods CEO Michael Potter has revived a March 2013 case to nix coverage of all birth control from his employees’ healthcare plans. In turn, many shoppers have soured on the organic food giant and are boycotting its products. “In accordance with his Catholic faith, Potter believes that any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation, whether as an end or means -- including abortifacients and contraception -- is wrong,” Erin Mersino, Eden’s lawyer from the conservative Thomas More...

Do you know that the verdict in this case actually limited the Court’s power? Following the loss of the presidency and Congress in the election of 1800, the lame-duck Federalist Congress enacted the Judiciary Act of February 3, 1801, creating 58 new federal judgeships and new circuit courts. Two weeks later, Congress created 42 justices of the peace in the District of Columbia. Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth resigned, and President John Adams named Secretary of State John Marshall to replace him. The judicial commissions were signed by President Adams, and the Seal of the United States affixed by the Secretary...

According to a Gallup poll released today, Republican support for the Supreme Court has increased 21 percentage points since September of last year. Partisan views have flipped since the beginning of the High Court’s term last October. GOP approval has increased from a mere 30 percent to a majority of 51 percent. On the other hand, Democrats approval is down 14 points, falling from 58 percent to 44 percent. This is notable considering the majority of Democrats have viewed the Supreme Court favorably since 2012’s ruling on the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act. During this time,...

The recent Supreme Court decision on Hobby Lobby has had an impact on the approval rating for the nation’s top judicial panel, but it’s not exactly what detractors of the decision predicted. Paralleling the Economist/YouGov poll last week, Gallup’s most recent poll shows that overall approval and disapproval has stayed nearly constant over the past year or more. The profound change has taken place in the composition of both segments: Americans remain divided in their assessments of the U.S. Supreme Court, with 47% approving of the job it is doing, and 46% disapproving. These ratings are consistent with approval...

The Heritage Foundation’s annual Scholar’s and Scribes event held on July 8th discussed the Supreme Court’s 2013 – 2014 term. The discussion about the cases focused around women’s health, the First Amendment, and racial discrimination. hobby lobby scotus protest A member of the scholars’ panel, John Malcom, Director of Legal and Judicial Studies at Heritage, remarked that this was an exceptionally good year for conservatives, although the positive results were achieved through narrow victories. The most recent case, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, was the topic of an in-depth discussion. Due to the political backlash and misreporting about the decision from...

Senate and House Democrats are outraged by the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of Hobby Lobby in the firm’s lawsuit seeking exemption from the Obamacare mandate that employers provide, free of charge, contraceptives to employees. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid called the Supreme Court decision “outrageous” and Democrats have introduced bills in the Senate and the House to overturn the decision. Why exactly is it that Democrats find it so outrageous that in America religious freedom is respected? That we have law – The Religious Freedom Restoration Act under which the owners of Hobby Lobby sued the federal government...

It’s a pretty strong suggestion too, and it should give Democrat incumbents in the Senate yet another reason to question Harry Reid’s leadership. The Economist/YouGov partnership conducted two polls on approval levels for the Supreme Court. One was taken from June 28th-30th, ending the same day that the court handed down its Hobby Lobby decision (and Harris v Quinn for that matter), and after its previously-announced decisions the week before, and the other from July 5-7, at the pitch of the hysterical overreaction to the 5-4 Hobby Lobby result. While the media and Democrats seem to believe that the...

Suddenly it's a possibility that experts are contemplating: marriage equality could be the law of the land all across the United States within one year. On Wednesday, Utah asked the Supreme Court to resolve its dispute with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals which two weeks ago became the first U.S. circuit court to declare that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. Legal experts say the Supreme Court is likely to accept the case. With lawsuits piling up, and gay marriage on an undefeated legal streak since the Court axed the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, the...

It's been almost a week since the Supreme Court issued their ruling on the Hobby Lobby case, and there appears to be no end in sight to the Left's outrage over the outcome. As expected, given the controversial nature of the issue at hand, most of the ire is reflexive and purely visceral. It's unlikely that many are taking the time to actually educate themselves on the Court's reasoning behind the decision. In their eyes, misogyny and religious fanaticism won out over women's rights, period. On the Right, there is a temptation to fall into essentially the same error: ascribing...

Judging from the seething reaction by liberals to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the “Hobby Lobby” case, one might easily forget that just two years ago they were singing the Court’s praises after it refused to declare ObamaCare unconstitutional. Then again, such extreme emotional swings should not be unexpected when one’s perception of justice is based not on law, but on politics and emotion. Therefore, in spite of a ruling that was far more limited in scope than could easily have been the case, the Left’s over-the-top reaction to Hobby Lobby is based on myth and delusion. Below are...

Have we reached Peak Reid Demagoguery yet? I thought we had yesterday when Democrats signed onto Harry Reid’s Kochsteria strategy for the 2014 midterms, but we actually missed the new nadir for America’s top-ranked demagogue — but our good friend Larry O’Connor at the Free Beacon didn’t. Yesterday, when addressing the media about the Democratic strategy to undo Hobby Lobby, Reid insisted that the Senate wouldn’t let “five white men” have the last word on contraception mandates.Um …CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO “The one thing we are going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later,...

Sahil Kapur, TPMJuly 8, 2014 Senate Democrats are poised to introduce legislation as early as Tuesday to reverse the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling which exempted for-profit corporations with religious owners from the Obamacare mandate to cover emergency contraceptives in their insurance plans. The legislation will be sponsored by Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Mark Udall (D-CO). According to a summary reviewed by TPM, it prohibits employers from refusing to provide health services, including contraception, to their employees if required by federal law. It clarifies that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the basis for the Supreme Court's ruling against the...

Poverty, violence and other issues aside, women everywhere are focused on being depressed after hearing the “anti-woman” ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.and Wheaton College v. Sylvia Burwell last week. Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College became embroiled in litigation due to Obamacare’s requirement that for-profit employers provide abortifacients to employees, despite their owners’ Christian beliefs. As we all know, there is no issue or right more important to women everywhere than to force all employers to subsidize their use of abortifacients. It doesn’t matter that women can easily buy the abortifacient Plan B...

If Eric Holder were a baseball player, he’d have been benched long ago — if not kicked off the team. His batting average before the Supreme Court is abysmal, losing again and again in his efforts to undermine the Constitution. This term featured four big strike downs. First was Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which the Supremes tossed out ObamaCare’s contraceptive abortion mandate and upheld the First Amendment rights of several family-owned businesses to make their living in conformance with their religious beliefs. Although the government was not party to another case, Harris v. Quinn, the Justice Department filed an...