Here we are looking to very large moments in political history. Most important to remember in all of this, is the demand the voters have made on both issues, this is not the “fault” of the republican party… this is the will of the people. Neither Fast & Furious Contempt issue nor the Affordable Care Act, are in the position they are today without the encouragement, and demands of the voting public, don’t forget that and don’t let those damned politicians forget it either. Pundits will tell you not to “spike” the football regardless of what side you are on, hell for ACA I am on the side of my wallet, and liberty, thank-you very much and I will take the news whatever way I choose to, shove it D.C.~Second, we are making a list and checking it twice to see who has a set on them big enough to move forward on the contempt vote against Holder~ do what is correct legally is what the public is looking for. Americans generally and historically have always had a sense of fair play; and not by the NAACP/Sharpton standards…to them I say “suck it”!
Affordable Care Act, hahahahahhah. Sorry the name still seems like an oxymoron to me. Let’s recap the beast, shall we?
The beast is informally referred to as Obamacare, a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The law (along with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010) is the principal health care reform legislation of the 111th United States Congress. PPACA requires individuals not covered by employer- or government-sponsored insurance plans to maintain minimal essential health insurance coverage or pay a penalty unless exempted for religious beliefs or financial hardship, a provision commonly referred to as the individual mandate. The Act also reforms certain aspects of the private health insurance industry and public health insurance programs, increases insurance coverage of pre-existing conditions, expands access to insurance to 30 million Americans, and increases projected national medical spending while lowering projected Medicare spending.
PPACA passed the Senate on December 24, 2009, by a vote of 60–39 with all Democrats and two Independents voting for, and all Republicans voting against. It passed the House of Representatives on March 21, 2010, by a vote of 219–212, with 34 Democrats and all 178 Republicans voting against the bill.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act
What the Supreme Court is deciding on Today:
Once the Court does turn to health care, there are four questions before it. Three of those questions revolve around the “minimum coverage” provision, popularly known as the “individual mandate.” Of course, the question keeping the White House, Congress, and everyone else in the country on pins and needles is whether the mandate – which would require virtually all Americans to buy health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty – is constitutional: can Congress, using its power under the Constitution to regulate commerce between the states, make people buy health insurance? (More detailed Plain English discussions of the substantive issues in the case, including the individual mandate.
The potential obstacle to the Court’s review of the mandate is the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA), an 1867 law that prohibits lawsuits to challenge a tax until the tax has actually gone into effect and needs to be paid. At least one lower court has concluded (and the federal government once even argued) that the “penalty” which would be imposed on someone who doesn’t buy health insurance under the mandate is a “tax”; therefore, this line of reasoning goes, someone who believes that the mandate is unconstitutional cannot bring a lawsuit making that argument until after the mandate actually goes into effect in 2014.
If the AIA applies to the lawsuit over the mandate, then the Court cannot consider the challenge to the mandate even if both the federal government and the states challenging the law want the Supreme Court to decide the case. So if at least five of the nine members of the Court were to conclude that the AIA does apply to the mandate, that would be the end of the matter. The Court would not discuss, much less rule on, whether the mandate is constitutional, nor would there be any reason for the Court to weigh in on what parts of the law, if any, can survive if the law is unconstitutional – the “severability” question. Instead, the Court would skip straight to the fourth and final question, dealing with the constitutionality of a provision that expands eligibility for Medicaid, the state-federal partnership that provides health care to the poor.
, Here we are waiting for 10 a.m. to get here so we can know the fate of our liberty over our bodies, our money and control of our own healthcare. We are also going to see some major circus acts today in the realm of political theater regarding the Holder contempt vote. Either way, feel free to discuss, pull up a chair, enjoy come popcorn, beer, and on my porch you can spike the football all you want. Here we go Katz!
In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.
Is there a doctor in the house? I’m sick!
The bad news is: there goes the election.
The good news is: no worries about BO’s future liberal appointees to the Supreme Court.
Sassy I hear you, I can’t do the teevee much more. Ugh it is depressing. We the tax mules that’s all we hear anymore, living the dream on Obama’s Plantation.
Isn’t it nice that five people get to take America hostage? Is this what the founding father’s had in mind? There need to be changes NOW….SCOTUS needs oversight and term limits. And the average American needs to start paying attention. What is next? It is mandatory that you vote for obama, that you only buy American made cars (are there any), and the list could be endless. We are on a very slippery slope!!
“Say What You Will…It Feels So Good”
http://www.saywhatyouwill.proboards.com
Uh, yeah…As I said to Katmoon, the liberals were saying that if it was 5-4 against the mandate, that would make it invalid. But now that the Court has ruled this a TAX, and ruled 5-4, it is FANTASTIC for Obama. Huh? Because he and the Dems lied through their teeth to get this in, and then Obama’s attorneys argued it WAS a tax?! Wow.
Katmoon and I are on the phone now, and she said that things may not be as bad as they first appear, so we just need to sit tight. Okkkaayyyy – I hope so!
I hear you Psst, just trying to stay away from sharp objects right now!
Think this way, the liar in chief has to answer to Romney for that lie, while Obama goes at Romney for what…just Bain capitol? I don’t think so, but I keep wondering when we the people get a break, as we sure haven’t since o-hole has taken office. What is going to be hard for awhile is to watch the Joker’s twin sister, Pelosi, brag, Obama brag, and all the pundits just gleeful that we are all going to be taxed more, now covering 50% of a lazy ass population. IMHO if this doesn’t fire up republicans than nothing will.
It is time for a revolution!!!
Yes it is. Saying it out loud is about time!
Vote going on Fast & furious..anyone have a live link/
Oops my bad, 4pm-But democrats are going to walk out in protest
Where states stand on implementing health care law
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-06-28/health-care-states/55889922/1
Great article
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/war.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/06/the_politics_of_the_obamacare_decision.html
June 28, 2012
The politics of the ObamaCare decision (repeatedly updated with dissents)
Thomas Lifson
It looks to me that there are some sweet lemons for conservatives in the ObamaCare decision. Before we burn the chief justice in effigy, let’s read the decision and think about the implications.
First of all, upholding ObamaCare is going to energize opposition to Obama, and the determination to elect a Congress that can repeal and replace it. Just a day ago, the MSM was telling us it would be a plus for Obama if the act were held unconstitutional because it would take the issue off the table and weaken his opposition.
On the other hand, as Rick Moran points out, “it gives Obama a big boost; everyone likes a winner.
I have no doubt that the same media will now proclaim it is a big victory, a change in momentum, a blow to the right. I also expect Sudden New Respect for Chief Justice Roberts. I am not going to hold that against him.
For one thing, the Court went nowhere near claiming the Commerce Clause means the feds can force us to do anything. The CJ and the majority (remember, by joining the majority he got to write the opinion) relied on the taxation power, by defining the mandate penalty as a tax. In other words, they seem to have in effect said, Yeah, the Democrats lied when they claimed they weren’t raising taxes. Big deal! What do you expect?
Lyle at SCOTUS Blog agrees with me:
The rejection of the Commerce Clause and Nec. and Proper Clause should be understood as a major blow to Congress’s authority to pass social welfare laws. Using the tax code — especially in the current political environment — to promote social welfare is going to be a very chancy proposition.
So in other words, the CJ protected us from the expanding the reach of the Commerce Clause, and let us know that we were lied to by the Democrats. And has handed us a big election issue.
Sometimes we win by losing. Call it the Zen of John Roberts.
Update with other opinions:
Mike Razar (corrected attributuion of this) is outraged by CJ Roberts:
You win some; you lose some. It is doubly painful to lose because of a betrayal by someone you admired and trusted. Caesar’s dying words were “Et tu Brute”. Judas Roberts has broken faith with everyone who cares about Constitutional freedom. Given the opportunity to at least slow two centuries of the assumption of dictatorial power by the federal government, Roberts has chosen to side with the Jacobins. His name henceforth is inexorably linked with Benedict Arnold, the one-time hero of Saratoga who mysteriously changed sides when his loyalty was most needed by General Washington. Nathan Hale must be sobbing in his grave today.
Just as the betrayal by Arnold ultimately did no lasting harm, history will record that this act of cowardice sparked a renewed commitment of our modern Tea Party patriots to the founding principles of liberty. Perhaps our righteous indignation will go beyond defeating the liberty challenged politicians in Washington. They should amend the Constitution, to clearly limit the powers of the federal government to tax and regulate the everyday lives of individual citizens.
For now, every Tea Party patriot should sign a petition calling for the resignation of Mr. Roberts.
Sara Goss disagrees:
The Democrats will be hailing the SCOTUS decision to uphold Obamacare as a referendum on Obama’s 1st term in office. What they won’t be mentioning is that Obamacare was upheld because Congress has the power to TAX. As has been said all along, if it looks like a tax and acts like a tax, then it’s a tax. And, it’s the largest tax ever imposed in a single shot on the American public.
Republicans should be dissecting this ruling and shouting from the roof tops that Obamacare was sold to Congress as relating to health care. When it was defended in court the main defense was that it was a tax. And, of course, Congress has the power to levy taxes. Going forward, we need to change all references from Obamacare to Obamatax. Because, as has been pointed out by SCOTUS, it’s not about health care, it’s about taxes.
C. Edmund Wright thinks Lying is Constitutional; Common Sense is Not
While the pundits are still in shock and babbling about what just happened at the Supreme Court, we do know this much:
The Supreme Court has just ruled that our government can blatantly lie to us about their ability to tax — as long as they end up calling it a tax in the end. They can do that with the Court’s blessing in fact. Moreover, the government can now tax what we do or do not do as well as income. As Andrew Napolitano said on Fox News, his libertarian fervor barely under control, this is no doubt “the most bizarre tax in history” and allows our government to “tax us not on income, but on behavior.”
As Mark Levin reiterated last night on his radio show, Obama Care “fundamentally changes the relationship between a citizen and his government.” Indeed. We cease to be citizens. We become line item expenses.
In a technical sense, this was an initial defeat for Obama Care and the individual mandate because the government’s ability to compel commerce was struck down. That’s when John Roberts – ignoring the real lesson of Solomon’s’ threat to cut the baby in half – rushed in to save the mandate by saying that the government could accomplish the same thing by simply calling this a tax.
In other words, according to Roberts, not only are we line items, we are nothing more than schlubs and Roberts encourages our government to lie to us to make sure we don’t get out of control.
In other words, Kathleen Sebelius will need a little more help from the IRS than they had originally thought. Meanwhile, we all just suffered at least a short-term defeat to the very concept of limited government and liberty since Sebelius and the IRS as well as her army of bureaucrats in the Jurassic HHS Department just gained more of a foot hold in our lives.
This will no doubt set up a real showdown between the House and the White House over Obama Care between now and the election. At this point, how this plays out in a political sense is unknown but there is one thing for sure: the best chance of today’s insane ruling working out well in the end is for the GOP members of the House and for Team Romney to come out hard and aggressive.
This ruling is awful. This bill is awful. It will end America as we know it and therefore it must be defeated and soundly. And it will likely be fought on the very nature of what a mandate is.
Karin McQuillan looks to the emotional impact:
Two conflicting emotions. I feel a hollow pit in my stomach, a body blow. We cannot rely on the Supreme Court to protect us from unlimited, tyrannical nanny state government reaching into every aspect of our lives. I was hoping, and yes, expecting, the Court to roll back the expansion federal power by a historic reassertion of the Commerce Clause, to once again reserve power to the states, as our founders intended. I hoped for big language about freedom of citizens from government intrustion.
Our trust and respect for Justice Roberts was misplaced. He is not going to be a hero of Constitutional government.
Obamacare was not passed as a tax and wasn’t passable as a tax. For the Court to uphold it as a tax is to undercut our democratic process. It is rewriting the law to make it viable.
Next emotion. Steely determination. A landslide victory has just become possible. The majority of the American people – who loathe socialized medicine – are going to rise up and vote. They will vote the Obama-Reid-Pelosi European socialist Democrat Party out of office. This election will be hard fought but it will not be close.
Obama’s disastrous attack on our economy through profligate spending and a ban on using our energy resources was not going over well with ordinary voters. Now he has the millstone of Obamacare around his neck. Headlines may say he was vindicated, but they will not motivated discouraged, unemployed young whites, single women, Hispanics or blacks to rush out and vote for their guy, all happy that Obamacare will be around.
It will motivate the rest of us.
Richard Baehr sees gloom:
I am not as optimistic. I think this could dispirit our side and boost enthusiasm for the dems. Intrade betters feel the same way. Obama odds of winning up a few points already. Last two weeks have been bad news in general for purr side. We are being routed among Hispanics due to new immigration policy. Obama has over 40 point lead nationwide. We will not win Nevada or colorado with these numbers and maybe not florida either. No chance of romney winning without florida. I think today is a disaster. Roberts is gutless. I thought Kennedy would be the squishy one.
Steve McCann sees cowardice, but also sees the “sleeping giant” awakening:
Cowardice. That is the only way to describe the Supreme Court decision to recast the ObamaCare mandate as a “tax.” Something the Congress and Obama went out of their way to avoid when debating and passing the bill. Something they explicitly said was not a “tax” on repeated occasions.
The Court appeared determined to find a way to avoid declaring the mandate unconstitutional and thus having to confront the issue of severability which would have forced them to declare the entire Bill unconstitutional. Reading something into the law that was not there is the epitome of judicial activism and a historic black mark on the independence of the Judiciary. Acting as impartial jurors was not the basis of this process, rather it was to avoid, in their minds, getting into a political fray.
All they have done is exacerbate the political process and force the American people to finally confront the fact that they, on November 6th will have the final decision. Conservatives, libertarian, conservative Democrats and Republicans now have had the gauntlet thrown down and Obama and the left, while in celebratory mood now, will face a more united and determined foe.
As Admiral Yamamoto said upon hearing of the successful attack on Pearl Harbor: “I fear all we have done is wake up a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.”
The Ulsterman Report, which purports to be the voice of a connected DC insider telling the truth anonymously, and which posts fascinating unsourced accounts of what’s really going on inside the White House, posts the thoughts of a “long time DC political operative” seeing this as a plus for the GOP, just as I did at the top of this post:
It’s 2010 all over again now. Swing states will shift over to Romney in most cases. Trust me on this. We’ve done the polling. The data is conclusive on this. It’s a huge tax. We got Obama lying. Again.
The Tea Party movement, which was as real and powerful a political movement as I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, is back in play. That scares the hell out of the Obama White House. You just got a bunch of Dems sweating hard over their re-election. The Republican Party will now be a lot more focused and clearly conservative and that’s exactly what they need to be this time around.
By calling ObamaCare a tax, the Court has redefined the political dynamics:
It’s the Obama Tax now. And states were given an out. The entire law is a big ass convoluted mess and the ruling has reinforced that fact. Obama will have to defend something he doesn’t understand, and Romney can now sit back and just repeat over and over again “repeal-repeal-repeal”.
If Obama gains any momentum from this, I hope he celebrates and gives into his worst instincts, taunting us. There is plenty of time momentum to change. The changed terrain will work its effects, and all those Democratic Senators up for re-election are going to be asked how they will vote on the repeal of ObamaCare and on a filibister attempt in a GOP Senate. So will the incumbent Democrats in the House. Voters will draw their own conclusions on the wisdom of returning Obama to office.
Tom Rowan sees Chief Justice Roberts as a hero:
Odd, and thanks to Amy for bringing this up.
Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will amend the Internal Revenue Code to expand the scope of Form 1099. Currently, 1099 forms are used to track and report the miscellaneous income associated with services rendered by independent contractors or self-employed individuals. ..Coin Dealers Flipping
Starting Jan. 1, 2012, Form 1099s will become a means of reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the purchases of all goods and services by small businesses and self-employed people that exceed $600 during a calendar year. Precious metals such as coins and bullion fall into this category and coin dealers have been among those most rankled by the change.
This provision, intended to mine what the IRS deems a vast reservoir of uncollected income tax, was included in the health care legislation ostensibly as a way to pay for it. The tax code tweak is expected to raise $17 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/gold-coin-dealers-decry-tax-law/story?id=11211611