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The state of Oklahoma, arguing that the Supreme Court should consider the views of a state government when it rules on the legality of federal tax subsidies to be paid to insurance-buying consumers under the Affordable Care Act, has urged the Court to review that state’s case when it considers the already granted case of King v. Burwell.

Mickey Kaus makes an interesting argument that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Supreme Court may act on the lawsuit John Boehner is planning to file, and reverse President Obama’s planned executive action on amnesty: With Obama’s executive amnesty imminent, anonymous White House aides are cockily dismissing John Boehner’s threatened lawsuit against it as a stunt. Even among opponents of executive amnesty — and I’m with them — there’s a tendency to pooh pooh the suit. It’s a loser, it will take forever to decide, it’s an attempt to ‘redirect Republican rage’ away from budgetary remedies like denying funding, etc. Not so fast. I’m...

Democrats lost the Senate, but so what? President Obama still has two more years and a veto. But there is at least one area where the GOP’s new Senate majority makes a big difference: a Supreme Court nomination. While it’s still unclear whether Obama will get to nominate another justice, the Republican gains in November make it unlikely a liberal nominee, such as Justice Thurgood Marshall, would be confirmed. And a nominee like the two Obama-appointed justices currently sitting on the court, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, would face a possible filibuster. Only a true middle-of-the-road nominee — such as...

Under Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court has emerged as one of the most ideologically aggressive in decades, and its rightward trajectory is usually attributed to this simple fact: a majority of the justices are very conservative. TodayÂ’s Court contains, according to one study, four of the five most conservative justices to sit on the bench since FDR; Anthony Kennedy, the putative swing vote, is in the top ten.But having covered the Court for 15 years, IÂ’ve come to believe that what weÂ’re seeing goes beyond ideology. Because ideology alone would not propel the justices to effect such massive...

"Stupid is as stupid does" -- Forrest Gump Unless you regularly follow conservative media, you may not have heard what one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) thinks about you. Jonathan Gruber is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology health economist who helped craft Obamacare. In a rare moment of unvarnished candor, Gruber told an audience last year at the University of Pennsylvania the law passed because of the "stupidity of the American voter." In what can only be described as a smoking gun -- meaning there is no way to spin his remarks as "out of...

MIT Professor and chief ObamaCare architect, Jonathan Gruber, has been captured on video tape, twice, bragging that he purposely deceived “stupid Americans”, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and all Democrats, in order to enact Barack Obama’s “legacy” healthcare legislation. Professor Gruber has also been captured on tape, explaining how states that decide NOT to establish state-run healthcare exchanges would suffer financial harm by not being eligible to receive federal healthcare subsidies. This “smoking gun”, 2012 Gruber videotape is damning evidence that exposes the current administration/media lie that only a “typo” in the current ObamaCare law is preventing the federal government...

So it turns out there is an Obamacare death panel after all. It has nine members and it operates out of a marble building directly across the street from the Capitol. When the Supreme Court on Friday announced that it would take up another challenge to the Affordable Care Act in March, it delivered the threat of two mortal blows to the signature achievement of the Obama presidency. First, it raised the possibility that the justices, who narrowly spared the law in 2012, will in June come out with a new ruling that would dismantle the law on different grounds....

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will hear a lawsuit challenging an arbitrary IRS decision to issue tax credits and penalties through federally created Obamacare exchanges. Two federal courts have already declared the regulation unconstitutional, but a third court ruled that the IRS has acted within its authority. It was this ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that prompted the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell to file an appeal with the high court. If the Supreme Court rules against the Obama administration in this case, it could well be the undoing of the reviled health care...

Barney Frank lived up to his last name, and might live to regret it in Dem circles. Appearing on this morning's Up with Steve Kornacki, Frank admitted that the key Obamacare clause that the Supreme Court just agreed to consider was a "mistake." The clause on its face limits Obamacare subsidies to people obtaining coverage through state exchanges. Only 14 states set up exchanges, yet the Obama admin has been granting subsidies to millions of people who got their policies through federal marketplace instead. If SCOTUS enforces the literal language of the law, it could well deal a death blow...

In a significant setback for the Obama administration, the Supreme Court just agreed to review King v. Burwell, the Fourth Circuit’s decision upholding an IRS rule extending tax credits to federally established exchanges. The government had asked the Court to take a pass because there’s no split in the circuit courts over whether the IRS rule is valid. At least four justices—it only takes four to grant certiorari—voted to take the case anyhow. As I see it, what’s troubling here is not that the Court took King in the absence of a split. Its rules permit it to hear cases...

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a new challenge to the Affordable Care Act, a move that will again thrust the law into a high-profile battle before the high court.The Supreme Court's move is somewhat surprising, considering there is still no split in the lower, circuit courts. But the high court agreed to King v. Burwell, a case in which the Fourth Circuit court upheld an IRS rule that extends the distribution of health insurance subsidies to states served by the federal insurance marketplace.The challenge to the law is viewed as having the potential to cripple Obamacare in...

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a new challenge to President Barack Obama's health care law. The justices said they will decide whether the law authorizes subsidies that help millions of low- and middle-income people afford their health insurance premiums. A federal appeals court upheld Internal Revenue Service regulations that allow health-insurance tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for consumers in all 50 states. Opponents argue that most of the subsidies are illegal.

The US Court of Appeals in the sixth district  upheld gay marriage bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, setting the stage for what could be a Supreme Court showdown that would make the practice legal in all 50 states. The 2-1 decision was the first legal setback for gay marriage advocates in federal court and creates a split among the nation's circuit courts. In these sorts of disagreements, the Supreme Cour uisually steps in with a definitive ruling. USA Today: More important, it gives Supreme Court justices an appellate ruling that runs counter to four others from the...

When Iowa and North Carolina were called almost simultaneously a little before 11:30 pm Tuesday night, the seemingly inevitable became official: Republicans will control the Senate and thus the entire legislative branch. On a variety of fronts, this new alignment is going to be hugely problematic for progressive governance—perhaps for governance, period. These will be the major flash points. The last one is the most important, because it’s how the GOP will force Obama’s most of the rest. 1. Staffing the Executive Branch For much of the Obama presidency, Republicans in the Senate stymied up literally hundreds of presidential appointments...

Evan Wolfson and Ted Olson aren't pleased with the Supreme Court's decision not to make marriage equality the law of the land, but they're ready to keep fighting. In the heat of the civil-rights fight, when told he shouldn't push too hard for racial equality because of political backlash, Lyndon Johnson famously shot back, "What the hell's the presidency for?" Ted Olson had a similar question for the Supreme Court Wednesday, pondering why the justices had opted not to take a single case on same-sex marriage this term. "I agonize over the court not making a decision," said Olson, an...

The life of a Supreme Court justice would be “a little bit too monastic” for President Obama, according to an interview he gave the New Yorker about his legal legacy. Obama also praised the Supreme Court’s recent decision not to review lower-court rulings that struck down state prohibitions on same-sex marriage, saying he believes that the Constitution provides gays the right to marry. And he said that 81-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “gets to decide, not anybody else, when she chooses to go” into retirement. Obama made the remarks to the magazine’s legal correspondent, Jeffrey Toobin. Toobin noted that the...

There is a point where decision on contentious, difficult issues is unavoidable. With respect to homosexual conduct, the American Evangelical church has reached that point. There is no ignoring the determination of the gay and lesbian activists to insist upon complete social and legal normalization of homosexual conduct; from the adoption of children by same-sex couples to the judicial recognition of same-sex unions as marriages every bit as complete as those enjoyed by heterosexual couples. Thus, Christians cannot avoid the need to decide which side they are on. The Supreme Court's decision earlier this month to allow current judicial rulings...

President Obama does not want to be a Supreme Court justice. He calls it "too monastic" for his own personality. Besides, in an interview with the New Yorker, President Obama acknowledges that he needs to get out of the "bubble" after what will be eight years as president of the United States. “I love the law, intellectually,” the president tell the New Yorker, which says he sounds "tempted" at the idea of being on the Court. “I love nutting out these problems, wrestling with these arguments. I love teaching. I miss the classroom and engaging with students. But I think...

The Supreme Court on Saturday allowed Texas to use its strict voter identification law in the November election. The court’s order, issued just after 5 a.m., was unsigned and contained no reasoning.

The US government announced Friday it would recognize same-sex marriages in seven additional states, after the Supreme Court declined to take up the debate. A total of 26 of the 50 US states, and the capital Washington, now legally recognize gay and lesbian marriages, giving them the same legal rights and federal benefits as married heterosexual couples. "We will not delay in fulfilling our responsibility to afford every eligible couple, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, the full rights and responsibilities to which they are entitled," US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a video message. "With their long-awaited unions, we are...