BEWARE reading ANYTHING into questions by the Justices. I’ve argued before SCOTUS, the VA Sup Ct and several appellate courts and questions don’t mean a whole lot. In fact, Justices will frequently ask questions the opposite of what they are inclined to do to force you to make their argument.
Judicial questions are for one purpose ... to spur discussion. Many times a Judge would grill me on an issue as though he didn’t buy it only to rule in my favor.
Anyone who tells you they can read the tea leaves on this one, or that there are even tea leaves to read, have know idea about what they speak.
All we can do is sit back and wait.
If Obamacare is unconstitutional, then what of Medicare?
I thought the eminent domain law would never be thrown out by the Supremes in the Kelo case, based upon their comments in the public hearing. I pray the justices don’t do the same in the Obamacare law and uphold it.
If I were a conservative, and I am, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Here is a take that has not been mentioned yet.
From what I understand the Justices don’t dicsuss the case after they’ve heard arguments. They go back to their chambers and write their opinions and vote. That’s not a rule, that is simply how the process has evolved.
Hoewever, the Justices are free to query one another and conversate with one another and there is no prohibition against lobbying another Jusice.
Keeping that in mind, now remember this: obama has put two women on that court and he picked them becasue they are as radical as he is.
I believe that Sotomayer is just as much as a radical activist as obama with a “union thug gene” deep in her genome.
I believe that Sotomayer will try to sway other Justices behind closed doors. I believe that she will be in touch with the obama adminstration giving them a blow by blow on how the decision is coming along. In short she is a mole.
I believe that if the opinion doesn’t go her way that she will try to fiddle with the final text in order to achieve her end.
Look at her track record if you don’t believe that sotomayer is capable of that. She is a non apologetic racist who will have her way and do anything to get her way.
Sotomayer is key, someone must keep an eye on her and keep her in check. (Kind of reminds me of John Carpenters “The Thing” with Kirt Russel)
No shock needed until this is over. We’re a long way from being finished on this.
The more I read of the withering questions of Kennedy, the more I feel the fix is in.
**** Kennedy raised the possibility that the plaintiffs [i.e., the government] were right that the mandate was a unique effort to force people into commerce to subsidize health insurance, but the insurance market may be unique enough to justify that unusual treatment.” ****
That’s all you need to know. Slam dunk, done. They are going to tie themselves in knots to uphold this law.
If it were a fair and just world, any Supreme Court Justice who would find this law constitutional would be dismissed from his or her duties immediately.
The leftists are going to put on a big show of being “thoughtful and then they are going to Roe v Wade this thing.
Right now, we are in what we used to call in the Navy, “standby to standby mode”. The fat lady isn’t expected to sing until sometime in June and any popping of champagne corks before then on the basis of questions currently being asked is premature, to say the least.
Certainly, the majority of Americans hope that the SCOTUS will overturn the law. After that, there is no telling how Congress and the administration will react. IMO, Reed and the Dems in the Senate will try to ram it through and pass it again just to prove that they can.
However, things will be very different in the House. And, the effect of ObamaCare on zero’s reelection campaign could truly be fascinating to watch. If it is overturned, will he blame Bush? Congressional Republicans? Conservatives on the Court? Tea Partiers? Three-legged Martian Furgobats??
Whatever, we know that zero will NOT accept that Americans don’t want his grand entrance into socialized medicine and someone - ANYONE but him - must take the blame if it is overturned. It just remains to be seen who.
EVERYONE SHOULD HOLD THEIR OWN APPLAUSE/BOOS UNTIL “THE FAT LADY SINGS” (UNTIL THE ACTUAL RULING)
I'll bet they've already chartered the buses.
It was unmistakably contained in Alito's line of questioning on burial insurance. Alito's metaphor is easily understood as signaling his disgust at the idea of penultimately giving the Commerce Clause vis divina over every other word in the Constitution, particularly those rather important Articles regarding separation of powers. It's a short step to render drawing (or re-drawing) that bright line.
Even the choice of wording was pointed. In fact, Alito's questioning was so composed, the majority opinion is already written in his head, and probably Nino's too. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Roberts hands the majority opinion to Alito so Roberts and Kennedy can disagree in part if necessary.
In the long run, this will just start them seething and plotting an insidious caper to seize control of the Court (just like their Secretaries of State Project after the 2000 election)
In reading the transcript, there are many references to the government forcing people to buy broccoli.
Recall President Bush declaring “I am President of the United States and I don’t have to eat my broccoli!” Funny how the Supreme Court is now asking, in earnest, why the government should not be able to force someone to buy, and presumably eat, broccoli.
I hope its right that its not going well for ObamaCare.
We will know more in June when they release their decision.
June right?
Anyone else find it amusing that the anti-capitalist will be upset if they can’t force all Americans (exclding their voting block) to buy healthcare.
Control freak commie progs!
This is a GREAT exchange ...
*****
MR. CARVIN: No, no, no. I was — they create this strawman that says: Look, the only alternative to doing it the way we’ve done it, if we condition access to health care on buying health insurance, the only way you can enforce that is making sick people not get care. I’m saying no, no.
There’s a perfectly legitimate way they could enforce their alternative, i.e., requiring you to buy health insurance when you access health care, which is the same penalty structure that’s in the Act.
There is no moral dilemma between having people have insurance and denying them emergency service. Congress has made a perfectly legitimate value judgment that they want to make sure that people get emergency care. Since the founding, whenever Congress has imposed that public responsibility on private actors, it has subsidized it from the Federal Treasury. It has not conscripted a subset of the citizenry and made them subsidize the actors who are being hurt, which is what they’re doing here.
They’re making young, healthy people subsidize insurance premiums for the cost that the nondiscrimination provisions have put on insurance premiums and insurance companies.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So the -
MR. CARVIN: And that is the fundamental problem here.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So the — I — I want to understand the choices you’re saying Congress has. Congress can tax everybody and set up a public health care system.
MR. CARVIN: Yes.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: That would be okay?
MR. CARVIN: Yes. Tax power is -
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Okay.
MR. CARVIN: I would accept that.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Congress can — are you taking the same position as your colleague, Congress can’t say we’re going to set up a public health system, but you can get a tax credit if you have private health insurance because you won’t access the public system. Are you taking the same position as your colleague?
MR. CARVIN: There may have been some confusion in your prior colloquy. I fully agree with my brother Clement that a direct tax would be unconstitutional. I don’t think he means to suggest, nor do I, that a tax credit that incentivizes you to buy insurance creates a problem. Congress incentivizes all kinds of activities. If they gave us a tax credit for buying insurance, then it would be our choice whether or not that makes economic sense, even though -
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So how is this different than this Act, which says if a taxpayer fails to meet the requirement of having minimum coverage, then they are responsible for paying the shared responsibility payment?
MR. CARVIN: The difference is that the taxpayer is not given a choice ...
If the individual mandate stands America is over.
I’ll move at least my money elsewhere.