Posted on 04/04/2012 1:06:43 PM PDT by tellw
President Obama's spokesman reiterated that a Supreme Court ruling against Obamacare would be "unprecedented," but even when explaining why that claim should stand, he fumbled Supreme Court history.
"It would be unprecedented in the modern era of the Supreme Court, since the New Deal era, for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation passed by Congress designed to regulate and deal with a matter of national economic importance like our health care system," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said today. "It has under the Commerce Clause deferred to Congress's authority in matters of national economic importance." Carney also said that Obama does not regret making the comment.
But Carney's history is incorrect. "Jay, that's not true," CBS's Norah O'Donnell countered. "There are two instances in the past 80 years where the president -- where the Supreme Court has overturned [laws passed on the basis of the Commerce Clause]: US vs Lopez and US vs Morrison."
The Lopez case, decided in 1995, involved Congress's authority to regulate schools under the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court ruled against Congress.
Lopez influenced the even more recent Morrison ruling in 2000, when the Supreme Court overturned sections of the Violence Against Women Act , on the basis that Congress had overstepped its authority under the Commerce Clause.
Carney was not convinced by O'Donnell's history. "What [Obama] made clear yesterday -- and he was a law professor, and he understands constitutional law and constitutional precedent and the role of the Supreme Court -- was a reference to the Supreme Court's history and it's rulings on matters under the Commerce Clause," he said.
well, we’ve never before had a massive Federal health care grab for the Court TO rule unconstitutional.
So in a Clintonesque sense I guess Barry is being truthful when he says this is “unprecedented”.
Lying douche bags. Here are the facts:
1789-2002 Acts of Congress Held as Unconstitutional..............................158
The quotation from Carney is the really interesting part to me. Carney is of course an idiot. And his view like the Dimest of Dim bulb is, if Obama said it, of course it is true. I know he is a hired flack, but that is pathetic.
From the Saul Alynsky School of Law and Diplomidiocy.
One thing you can count on...obamas alligator mouth, will always overload his parakeet butt.
Thanks for the warning. This shows how much you suck.
Thugs always double down, even when as here, a reporter actually corrects the bare-faced lies. Carney has his marching orders, and they are to stick to the script.
“...and he was a law professor” just like Sen. Kerry was a Vietnam War Hero!
Romney/ Santorum has to get in front of this with something like:
1. Respect the separation of power.
2. The power of the Constitution has served us well for 223 years.
3. In the future, everything is “unprecedented”, so the term is meaningless.
Whoa there, Jay. So you are telling us that either Obama is A) Incompetent and doesn't understand the purpose of the SC despite all his academia or B) He knows the purpose and is in willful denial and subversion of the constitution with regards to the purpose of the SC.
Which is it, Jay.
“he was a law professor”
Another lie. He was an adjunct instructor, same as Willie Clinton.
(”D-—uh, I meant to say ... **virtually unprecedented**.
And he was professor-like.” Jay O’Blarney)
He believes that his predecessor "progressives" have done such a good job at censoring the Founders' principles of their written Constitution from the public mind that he is speaking before a citizenry made up of "constitutional illiterates," as someone has called us.
He is about to find out that his Administration's blatant overreach for power over individuals triggered the greatest amount of research and study of the Founders' Constitution and its principles since the Revolutionary Period in our history.
Tocqueville, in the 1830's, observed how even in the backwoods, citizens were informed of their rights and liberties and their Constitution.
When so-called "progressives" determined to impose their ideas of government planning, government control, and government intervention in the lives of citizens, they first had to eliminate, as far as possible, the Declaration's primary message from the schools and "public" places.
This President is overly confident that their work has prepared American citizens for his emergence and his interpretation of their Constitution.
November 2010 should have signaled a new era. Apparently, it did not.
Whether by Divine Providence, or simple advances in technology, that which was "hidden" is now revealed, and ordinary citizens, with a mouse and a computer, can read the same historical writers the Founders' read. They can read all the letters, speeches, writings, and debates about liberty versus tyranny. They can read the real history of how the Constitution was intended by its Framers to protect them; and, they can read the essential ideas of their liberty. They even can read the cases where the Court has exercised its constitutional authority to strike down legislation which exceeded the Constitution's bounds.
They are becoming more and more "constitutionally literate" by the minute, and such "performances" as that in the Rose Garden only uncloak the "myth" surrounding this President's Constitutional understanding. By simple historical research, citizens can find each misrepresentation in that one "performance" and evaluate for themselves whether it is a political design to retain power, or a valid observation of the Court's role in safeguarding liberty.
Since this President's outrageous claims for unprecedented government control of almost every aspect of the society, one may be certain that every word of the Justice's opinions will be scrutinized carefully over the next decades, and they will be measured against the standards of the literature of America's founding period and the Framers of the Constitution which gave birth to freedom in this great land."Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant—they have been cheated; asleep—they have been surprised; divided—the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ... the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government, they should watch over it ... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free."- James Madison
That's not what The One said, so it not true. Nanny, nanny, boo, boo.
Another lie! He was never a professor. He was a lecturer only.
Surprised to see Obama cheerleader Norah contradict Carney like that..
In 1992, the Court delivered it’s opinion in NY vs United States, which ruled parts of a Congressional law regarding the handling of radioactive waste to be unconstitutional.
This is one of the most comprehensive treatments of federal legislation and administrative procedures ever.
The Court basically B-slapped Congress big time, and NY vx US has been the basis of a number of decisions since then, Lopez being only one.
States are not mere political subdivisions of the United States. State governments are neither regional offices nor administrative agencies of the Federal Government. The positions occupied by state officials appear nowhere on the Federal Government’s most detailed organizational chart. The Constitution instead “leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty,” The Federalist No. 39, p. 245 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961), reserved explicitly to the States by the Tenth Amendment.
NY vs United States, 505 US 144, 188
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.