Combative Obama warns Supreme Court on health law

Yahoo News ^ | 4/2/2012 | Stephen Collinson

[pterional]

US President Barack Obama on Monday challenged the "unelected" Supreme Court not to take the "extraordinary" and "unprecedented" step of overturning his landmark health reform law.

[MplsSteve]

What is this insufferable ass gonna do if the Court overturns “his” law?!

Not invite them to the annual Christmas/Kwanzaa party?!

[Steely Tom]

I can’t believe this.

[PapaBear3625]

Sounds like he’s worried.

[max americana]

Well, he has the wise-ass Latina in his pocket plus Kagan, so all he has to do is threaten the other 7.

[pterional]

I can’t remember a time that the President of the United States of America has threaten the US Supreme Court. We need to impeach this street thug!

[Blood of Tyrants]

He is going to get the Queen of Hearts to chop off their heads.

[dandiegirl]

Maybe it's time for the Supremes to rethink taking up his eligibility issue.

[kevslisababy]

I can’t help but wonder what the Justices think about this.

And it’s only “judicial activism” if they don’t agree with him, isn’t it?

[Cookies4ever]

I’d love to borrow Rush’s line about the Bamster, glittering gem of spectacular ignorance (hope I have that right). But in this case he’s too dangrous to be taken lightly. What will he do if Obamacare is deemed struck down? Will nothing stop him?

[A CA Guy]

FDR did, a switch in time saved 9.

FDR threatened to add 3 liberal Justices to the court to make it 12.

[backwoods-engineer]

Not since the detestable Andrew Jackson have we seen such hubris from a President toward the Supreme Court. Well, FDR had his schemes, too, but Obama might as well have echoed Jackson’s “let him enforce it” after Worcester v. Georgia.

[research99]

FDR packed the court in the 30’s after failing in his try to expand the number of justices.

[Rome2000]

The Venezuelan Congress dealt a severe blow to judicial independence by packing the country’s Supreme Court with 12 new justices, Human Rights Watch said today. A majority of the ruling coalition, dominated by President Hugo Chávez’s party, named the justices late yesterday, filling seats created by a law passed in May that expanded the court’s size by more than half.

“Five years ago, President Chávez’s supporters helped to enshrine the principle of judicial independence in a new democratic constitution,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Now, by packing the country’s highest court, they are betraying that principle and degrading Venezuelan democracy.”

The law passed in May expanded the court from 20 to 32 members. In addition to the justices named to the 12 new seats, five justices were named to fill vacancies that had opened in recent months, and 32 more were named as reserve justices for the court. Members and allies of President Chávez’s Fifth Republic Movement (Movimiento V República, or MVR) form a majority in Congress.

In 1999 a constituent assembly convoked by President Chávez drafted a constitution that guarantees the independence of the judicial branch and the autonomy of the Supreme Court. The Constitution specifically seeks to guarantee the independence of Supreme Court justices by establishing an impeachment process according to which justices may only be removed for “serious offenses” by a two-thirds majority vote by Congress.

But in May, President Chávez signed a court-packing law that allowed his governing coalition in the legislature to obtain an overwhelming majority of seats on the country’s highest court. The 17 new justices (and 32 reserves) were selected yesterday by a simply majority vote of the governing coalition, which did not reveal the names of the nominees to the opposition members of Congress until the time of the vote.

The court-packing law signed in May also gave the governing coalition the power to remove judges from the Court without the two-thirds majority vote required under the constitution. In June, two justices retired after facing possible suspension from the Supreme Court as a result of these new provisions.

The political takeover of the Supreme Court will compound the damage already done to judicial independence by policies pursued by the court itself. The Supreme Court, which has administrative control over the judiciary, has failed to provide security of tenure to 80 percent of the country’s judges. In March, the court summarily fired three judges after they had decided politically controversial cases.

Chávez supporters have justified the court-packing effort largely as a response to pro-opposition rulings in a deeply divided court, such as a highly questionable decision that absolved military officers who participated in the 2002 coup.

“President Chávez and his supporters should be taking steps to strengthen the judiciary,” Vivanco said. “Instead, they are rigging the system to favor their own interests.”

[dandiegirl]

The Justices are laughing at his stupidity and severe lack of knowledge in the way the US government has worked for 300 years. They know more than ever that he needs to go. I would imagine that even the libs on the court are a little nervous to see their hero acting this way. I think the supremes know the difference between activism and constitutionality of laws. BO is ignorant and stupid and it shows every single time he's off the teleprompter.

[Steely Tom]

If any Republican president, the outcry would be deafening. We would have a non-stop parade of Democrat committee chairmen, left-wing professors of law, prominent writers and scholars, being given air time on every news broadcast, every cable show, every Sunday morning show.

They would be given platform after platform to explain to the President -- schoolmarm style -- how, if he had listened better back in Civics class, he would know that the Supreme Court of the United States was established as one of three co-equal branches of the US Government, and that, as head of the Executive Branch of that government, he had no right to threaten, cajole, jawbone, or intimidate another of the co-equal branches.

Of course, that would be happening if a Republican president said anything like this.

Because Obama is a left-wing Democrat, the MSM has not a word to say in protest.

[Wicket]

I’m seein’ black helicopters and martial law in our future. Tin foil hat off (for the present moment).

[Bedford Forrest]

The little pencil-necked pansy has lost it - he will say whatever his handlers [names and addresses, please] tell him to say. Threatening the Court, eh???? The girly man will start gibbering anytime soon. We all can hope we catch it on live video.

[Rome2000]

This COMMUNIST SON OF A WHORE has a cousin named FIDEL CASTRO ODINGA and went to Kenya in 2006 to campaign for his commie cousin Rail Odinga (FIDELS DADDY)who lost the election but set his supporters to murder the winners to the point that they agreed to share power.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND HIS PARTY ARE COMMUNIST MONSTERS.

Prepare accordingly.

A supporter of the presidential challenger Raila Odinga (OBAMAS FIRST COUSIN WHO HE CAMPAIGNED FOR) in Kibera, a sprawling slum near the capital, Nairobi.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

I wouldn’t call him combative, more like Uppity or Militant.