Posted on 12/10/2018 11:22:09 AM PST by detective
The Supreme Court on Monday avoided a high-profile case by rejecting appeals from Kansas and Louisiana in their effort to strip Medicaid money from Planned Parenthood, over the dissenting votes of three justices. The court's order reflected a split among its conservative justices and an accusation from Justice Clarence Thomas that his colleagues seemed to be ducking the case for political reasons.
The two states were appealing lower court rulings that had blocked them from withholding money that is used for health services for low-income women. The money is not used for abortions. Abortion opponents have said Planned Parenthood should not receive any government money because of heavily edited videos that claimed to show the nation's largest abortion provider profiting from sales of fetal tissue for medical research.
Investigations sparked by the videos in several states didn't result in criminal charges.
The dispute at the high court has nothing to do with abortion, as Thomas pointed out in a dissent that was joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch. In his first discernible vote on the court, new Justice Brett Kavanaugh declined to join Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch because a fourth vote would have been enough to set the case for arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts also did not vote to hear the case, along with the four more liberal justices.
Your analogy is so absurd as to leave my jaw hanging.
No, it’s like the federal government telling the states to build highways, but since New Jersey builds 12-foot lanes, Alabama has been building 12-foot lanes. Alabama decides to build 11-foot lanes, and gets told the DOT will no longer fund the airport in Birmingham.
As to your claim, “If states don’t want Planned Parenthood to get Medicaid funding, they should just stop accepting Medicaid funding, period,” you sound like the Muslims who used Dhimmitude to disappear Christianity from the face of the Middle East. Alabama still has to pay for Medicare if they “reject” Medicare. As such, they will quickly be destroyed economically.
Another ‘Brilliant’ Trump appointment.
>>With all due respect, your comment is silly. Here’s MY comment from another thread that really goes to the heart of the legal dispute:
This story is complete B.S. What the court has said is that states don’t have strong grounds to dictate terms for spending money they receive from the Federal government. Here’s a better example that isn’t fraught with controversy due to the subject of the funding:
Suppose the Federal government requires any highway project built on the National Highway System to be designed and constructed with 12-foot travel lanes. If a state gets Federal money to build a new highway that will be part of the NHS, they can’t turn around and complain that they should have the right under the U.S. Constitution to build it with 11-foot lanes. Arguing against these Federal regulations about highway design on “states rights” grounds — while using the Federal money to build the road — is ludicrous.
If states don’t want Planned Parenthood to get Medicaid funding, they should just stop accepting Medicaid funding, period.
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Silly? LOL! Here’s a lesson in the Constitution. Do try to pay attention, please . . .
The concept of the Federal Government distributing funds to the states for anything other than what is specifically authorized by the constitution is (drum roll...) unconstitutional! Do you not understand that simple concept?
Now, tell me the part of the Constitution which authorizes the distribution of taxpayer dollars to private corporations, such as Planned Parenthood? Hmm? Tell me!
Silly, indeed. smh.
That post isn’t even coherent. You present completely incorrect analogies, then mix up Medicare and Medicaid in the same post.
Did your actual parish get filled up by illegals carrying diseases? Do you know there’s a way to financially support your parish without the diocese taking a cut of your contribution?
I would support any state like Alabama, Louisiana, etc. that challenged the constitutionality of Medicaid. That's not what this case was all about, so your point isn't even relevant.
Now, tell me the part of the Constitution which authorizes the distribution of taxpayer dollars to private corporations ...
Are you going to suggest that the Constitution only permits the Federal government to build and maintain its property and equipment using government employees?
The issue concerns 42 U.S.C. 1396a(a)(23) and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. States have the authority to make sure their Medicaid health care providers are qualified to provide medical services. If not, they can TERMINATE the contract. PP got busted for fraudulent billing practices, poor sanitation/clinical practices, and allegedly ran an underground racket selling baby parts.
There a various conflicting decision among different appellate courts granting States the power to terminate contracts with health care providers who break regs. Roberts and Kav. sided with PP, not jurisprudence because this issue needs to be resolved.
There is another case waiting for cert concerning this matter, we shall see what happens.
A conservative court is a pipe dream.
Kavanaugh should be on the warpath against the liberals. Apparently they beat him into submission.
>>Are you going to suggest that the Constitution only permits the Federal government to build and maintain its property and equipment using government employees?
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That is irrelevant. Of course the government can hire private citizens and companies to PERFORM WORK AUTHORIZED by the Constitution.
I will make this simple. Where does the Constitution authorize the federal government to DISTRIBUTE taxpayer dollars to private corporations. The key word is DISTRIBUTE, not PAY for services rendered.
I like your logic.
PP is basically a money-laundering operation for the Democrat party coupled with an effort “to keep in check those populations that we don’t want too many of”—to quote Darth Vader Ginsburg.
Turns out, this isn’t what the decision said. The decision left in place ALL state laws, including those that indeed banned gubment funds for abortion. It had to do with states’ rights, not abortion.
So Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch were in error?
Thomas said, “Some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify abdicating our judicial duty," Thomas wrote. "If anything, neutrally applying the law is all the more important when political issues are in the background."
I believe this, and it's corollary that a politically fraught issue should not be taken up merely for that, are true. Everyone here is rending their clothes over abortion, when this case is about how much control states have over spending federal funding. It's only peripherally about the odious Planned Parenthood.
We don't like it when liberal judges legislate form the bench, so we shouldn't like it when conservative ones do it. Kavanaugh has been right in basic law on both of the decisions for which he has taken heat. This is Congress's purview.
Wasn’t this case advanced to begin the dismantling of funding as well as getting the bonus of overturning Roe V Wade?
Dismantling of funding, yes. The “right” to abortion was never a part of this case.
I believe it was scene as a first chink in bringing the mountain down. That’s what I’m hearing on Christian/Catholic talk radio
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