The 5th Circuit Court's insult to Obama

[Warfish]

[QUOTE]The 5th Circuit Court's insult to Obama

By Laurence H. Tribe, Special to CNN

updated 12:44 PM EDT, Fri April 6, 2012

(CNN) -- There has never been any doubt that President Obama fully accepts the Supreme Court's authority to render a definitive ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Chief executives during our history, including President Andrew Jackson in the 1830s and President Harry Truman in the 1940s, have in fact challenged or threatened to challenge the court's right to command obedience to its understanding of the Constitution, but Obama certainly is not among them.

As a brilliant constitutional lawyer deeply devoted to the rule of law, he has nothing but respect for the critical function that judicial review performs in preserving the American system of constitutional government. Efforts to divine a contrary theory in his remarks were strained at the outset and have grown only more untenable.

The "unprecedented, extraordinary" step he noted the justices would be taking if they were to overturn the Affordable Care Act was, of course, not the step of exercising judicial review, as the court has done ever since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, but the step of second-guessing congressional judgments about how best to regulate a vast segment of the national economy. No one in the world -- certainly none of the justices -- can have been surprised to learn that Obama believes his signature domestic achievement fully complies with the Constitution and ought to be upheld -- or that the Supreme Court has a decades-old tradition of treading lightly when major regulations of interstate commerce come before it.

After the president made that entirely clear Tuesday, some suggested that it would be best for presidents not to comment on cases pending before the Supreme Court even while the rest of the nation continues to debate the underlying constitutional issues.

I was among those who took that view while others suggested that, as the entire nation continues to discuss the constitutionality of a vital economic measure, artificially muzzling the nation's chief executive ill serves the purposes of open public debate on important issues.

That's something about which people can reasonably differ. But there's no reasonable basis for seeing in the president's comments either a challenge to the court's authority as an independent branch of government or a clumsy attempt to pressure it politically or to influence its deliberations.

This president knows as well as anyone how utterly implausible it would be to think that the justices might be swayed in their constitutional views by his brief remarks, which did little more than reiterate a core theme of the government's legal briefs (namely, the critical importance of strong judicial deference to the elected branches on complex matters of economic regulation like national health care policy). This theme has received a full airing in media commentary, congressional hearings, legal scholarship and lower court judicial opinions. Nobody could really believe that the president's candid expression of a view that everyone already attributed to him would move the judicial calculus even a micrometer.

The justices have spent months steeped in more than a hundred legal briefs, presided over one of the most dramatic oral arguments of the past century and are currently engaged in robust internal deliberations. They also live in a world awash with op-eds, heated commentary and all the markers of fiercely divided public opinion. These are men and women accustomed to dealing with politics. They ordinarily approach their duties with the utmost seriousness and, we must hope, are exercising their very highest faculties of judgecraft and constitutional commitment in this case.

There was no disrespect in the president's entirely correct observation that precedent and historical practice alike would lead a suitably cautious court to uphold rather than overturn his signature first-term achievement in providing health insurance to millions of Americans. The fact that health care reform has represented a pressing issue for the nation over the course of a century would indeed make a decision to strike down the law all the more jarring. But the notion that the president's recognition of that fact somehow crossed the Rubicon in our separation of powers by seeking to diminish the court's independence is patently absurd.

That said, we have recently witnessed a shocking misuse of power in relation to these events. But it came from the judiciary rather than the president. Judge Jerry Smith of the 5th Circuit responded to the president's comments by ordering the Department of Justice to submit a three-page, single-spaced memo stating the administration's position on judicial authority to invalidate unconstitutional laws. Attorney General Eric Holder filed that memo Thursday, reiterating the plain import of the president's remarks and stating that "the power of the courts to review the constitutionality of legislation is beyond dispute."

Smith's gratuitous order is little more than a thinly concealed insult to the president, the Justice Department and the administration. It constitutes a shocking departure from norms of judicial behavior. While such partisan bickering might be expected from the minority leader of the Senate or from commentators like Rush Limbaugh, who drew upon Obama's remarks in yet another entry in their relentless attacks on the president, it is hardly to be expected of a federal judge.

As constitutional challenges to the Affordable Care Act have journeyed through the courts since the statute's 2010 passage, the country has engaged in a profound national conversation about the Constitution's import and meaning. Although I remain unpersuaded by constitutional objections to the statute, I respect the efforts of many Americans to give voice to their convictions in constitutional terms. This week's distortion and exaggeration only tarnish the earnestness of such efforts and threaten to undermine the genuine opportunities for constitutional dialogue and disagreement that sustain us as a nation.
[/QUOTE]

:gabgab:

[cr726]

Around they go.

[PlumberKhan]

State govt's force us to buy car insurance.

Yeah. I know. You don't "have" to drive.

You also don't "have" to go to a doctor...you can just go to the ER, get free care and stiff them on the bill. This law tried to address that. People obviously want the system the way it was...let them have it. The people crowing the loudest about the unconstitutionality of the law are the people that will eventually foot the bill for people who choose to use the ER as free health care.

Let them have it. Obama is mean for making people buy insurance.

[Frequent Flyer]

[QUOTE=Warfish;4429359]:gabgab:[/QUOTE]



[url]

[Warfish]

[QUOTE=PlumberKhan;4429433]...you can just go to the ER, get free care and stiff them on the bill. This law tried to address that.[/quote]

No it didn't.

Addressing that would have been to dissallow people to "stiff the bill" and get "free healthcare".

It would not have denied care in emergencies, but it would have held the recipient of the care responsible for payign their debts, no matter how long it took to do so. It could have even tried to assist by mandating (i.e. regulating commerce) what terms were possible for long-term payback.

[QUOTE]The people crowing the loudest about the unconstitutionality of the law are the people that will eventually foot the bill for people who choose to use the ER as free health care.[/QUOTE]

In a battle of evils, I'd much rather pay for their healthcare indirectly via higher prices, than give the Federal Govt. the power to compel the individual to engage in commerce with another private entity against their will.

[quote]Obama is mean for making people buy insurance.[/QUOTE]

No, not mean. The word I use is authoritarian. And while we can disagree, I do not prefer to have our Govt. have authoritarian power to compel me to engage in some form of commerce I am otherwise not choosing to engage in, with another private business I may not wish to engage with. Has nothign to do with healthcare, I am well insured, probably better than most tbh.

Or TLDR it's all fun and games till you PK, are forced under penalty of Law to buy X from Y when you don't want X, and can't stand Y. It's very easy to say this power will nevr be used again, but like many things, the words of today are esily forgotten in the heat of politics and power tomorrow.

The power vs. our liberty is the issue, noth healthcare. As I've said many times, while I don't support socialism in healthcare as a general policy, there are many state-based systems that would have no problem being constitutional....they just involve either a Social Security-like Single-payor system, or the outright nationalization of healthcare. The mandate is worse that either the current system or these socialist systems. And far more dangerous down the line, in the power over you and me it grants the State.

In my view, those who minimize this issue, the power and bredth of it being granted here, are not reading their history or being mindful of the lessons within.

[piney]

I kind of think this judge should have stayed away from playing politics here. I sort of feel judges should be above that and do their work in the courts. I know it is hard to separate your personal politics from aspects of your life but I feel there should be a level of prestige as a judge that should keep you from playing games like this.

[palmetto defender]

[QUOTE=PlumberKhan;4429433]State govt's force us to buy car insurance.

Yeah. I know. You don't "have" to drive.

You also don't "have" to go to a doctor...you can just go to the ER, get free care and stiff them on the bill. This law tried to address that. People obviously want the system the way it was...let them have it. The people crowing the loudest about the unconstitutionality of the law are the people that will eventually foot the bill for people who choose to use the ER as free health care.

Let them have it. Obama is mean for making people buy insurance.[/QUOTE]

PK, you're smarter than that. Required car insurance is not for the car owner. It liability to protect people you hit to take care of THEIR bodily injury and damage to their property not yours. Unless you have a car loan tyou don't have to have insurance on your vehicle.
I think the ER should be banned for people without insurance or who do not have the means to pay. Need health care? Go to a free clinic manned by bleeding heart liberals. Maybe Geoerge Soros and Warren Buffett can start a program to help fund them.

[shakin318]

[QUOTE=Frequent Flyer;4429446][url]

[FF2®]

[QUOTE=piney;4429569]I kind of think this judge should have stayed away from playing politics here. I sort of feel judges should be above that and do their work in the courts. I know it is hard to separate your personal politics from aspects of your life but I feel there should be a level of prestige as a judge that should keep you from playing games like this.[/QUOTE]

This.

[chiefst2000]

[QUOTE=Warfish;4429359]:gabgab:[/QUOTE]

There has never been any doubt that President Obama fully accepts the Supreme Court's authority to render a definitive ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Chief executives during our history, including President Andrew Jackson in the 1830s and President Harry Truman in the 1940s, have in fact challenged or threatened to challenge the court's right to command obedience to its understanding of the Constitution, but Obama certainly is not among them.

[B]As a brilliant constitutional lawyer deeply devoted to the rule of law, he has nothing but respect for the critical function that judicial review performs in preserving the American system of constitutional government. Efforts to divine a contrary theory in his remarks were strained at the outset and have grown only more untenable.[/B]


LOL This writer is a real journalist. Notice the absurd bolded paragraph. He is writing about a guy that already skirted the constitution on multiple occasions including his non recess-recess appointments. I couldn't read the rest.

[Jungle Shift Jet]

[QUOTE=chiefst2000;4430132]There has never been any doubt that President Obama fully accepts the Supreme Court's authority to render a definitive ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Chief executives during our history, including President Andrew Jackson in the 1830s and President Harry Truman in the 1940s, have in fact challenged or threatened to challenge the court's right to command obedience to its understanding of the Constitution, but Obama certainly is not among them.

[B]As a brilliant constitutional lawyer deeply devoted to the rule of law, he has nothing but respect for the critical function that judicial review performs in preserving the American system of constitutional government. Efforts to divine a contrary theory in his remarks were strained at the outset and have grown only more untenable.[/B]

LOL This writer is a real journalist. Notice the absurd bolded paragraph. He is writing about a guy that already skirted the constitution on multiple occasions including his non recess-recess appointments. I couldn't read the rest.[/QUOTE]

Journalist? Only one of the biggest lib lawyers in the US and 0's Harvard mentor.
(thinks B. Hussein is extraordinarily smart....:coocoo: but then again not above trying to get GE off the hook for superfund cleanup....)

[JoeyStylez]

[QUOTE=palmetto defender;4429782]PK, you're smarter than that. Required car insurance is not for the car owner. It liability to protect people you hit to take care of THEIR bodily injury and damage to their property not yours. Unless you have a car loan tyou don't have to have insurance on your vehicle.
I think the ER should be banned for people without insurance or who do not have the means to pay. Need health care? Go to a free clinic manned by bleeding heart liberals. Maybe Geoerge Soros and Warren Buffett can start a program to help fund them.[/QUOTE]

So screw those people, huh? People who cannot afford ER care can just F off and die, right? Amazing how cruel and selfish you are. People like you are the problem in this country. Do us a favor and move out of here and take every like-minded person with you. Create a place called Selfishtopia where it's every person for themselves. Just make sure not to ask us for help in 10 years when your country turns on itself.

[palmetto defender]

[QUOTE=JoeyStylez;4430450]So screw those people, huh? People who cannot afford ER care can just F off and die, right? Amazing how cruel and selfish you are. People like you are the problem in this country. Do us a favor and move out of here and take every like-minded person with you. Create a place called Selfishtopia where it's every person for themselves. Just make sure not to ask us for help in 10 years when your country turns on itself.[/QUOTE]

Go to a free clinic. There are plenty of places to get cheap or free care from doctors volunteering. Or buy insurance. Or stay healthy. Or get a job. Or stop having children out of wedlock. Why should someone with no insurance and nothing get the same medical as me?
BTW, I worked for a living, didn't live off welfare for the better part of my life like a lot of people. Never took anything from the gov. I fought in battle for this country. YOU? I worked with my community. YOU? I helped people of color and brought them along - both in the military, private sector and with youths. YOU?
You are a sponge who wants to TAKE. Not give. You want something? Work for it. Lots of people buying drugs and not insurance.
I are retired but not on SS or Medicare yet. I pay a huge premium for my health coverage. Fine. I also have a long term care insurance premium - big. My care is my responsibilty.
There should not be a free lunch. Two exceptions. Children born with severe birth defects and military people suffering serious injury.
I have not pity towards the lazy and losers. The Obama way is to make everyone dependent on the government. "Look what I am giving you. Aren't I great? Keep electing us for freebies."
BYW, I am an American. Not a hyphenated one either. And I am not going anywhere. Are you talking about turning on itself as an exhortation to "Burn, baby, burn?" Sounds like the original black panther party. You an adherent of that fine bunch?

[Frequent Flyer]

[QUOTE=JoeyStylez;4430450] Amazing how cruel and selfish you are. People like you are the problem in this country. [/QUOTE]

:rotfl:

[rbstern]

When did Obama become a "brilliant constitutional lawyer?"

He taught classes at U. of Chicago while they provided him office space and a salary to write his book. He was already working on his political career in state politics. As best I know, he never tried a case as a lawyer, and certainly not a case based on a constitutional issue. He never authored any papers on constitutional law. He basically went from law school to law lecturing, while simultaneously doing community organizing and running for the state legislature.

That's the resume of a "brilliant constitutional lawyer?" Sheesh.

[cr726]

[QUOTE=rbstern;4431525]When did Obama become a "brilliant constitutional lawyer?"

He taught classes at U. of Chicago while they provided him office space and a salary to write his book. He was already working on his political career in state politics. As best I know, he never tried a case as a lawyer, and certainly not a case based on a constitutional issue. He never authored any papers on constitutional law. He basically went from law school to law lecturing, while simultaneously doing community organizing and running for the state legislature.

That's the resume of a "brilliant constitutional lawyer?" Sheesh.[/QUOTE]

I have heard him called constitutional professor not lawyer.

[quantum]

[QUOTE=JoeyStylez;4430450]So screw those people, huh? People who cannot afford ER care can just F off and die, right? Amazing how cruel and selfish you are. People like you are the problem in this country. Do us a favor and move out of here and take every like-minded person with you. Create a place called Selfishtopia where it's every person for themselves. Just make sure not to ask us for help in 10 years when your country turns on itself.[/QUOTE]

oh **** - Florence Nightingale posts here! :eek:

what a naive, dumass post. :shakehead