ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Adam Freedman ·
March 28, 2012 at 1:22am
Today was a good day for ObamaCare's opponents. The early MSM predictions that this would be an easy case, with 7 or 8 justices upholding the law, seem clearly to be incorrect. But there is no clear majority to overturn the mandate, either. In other words, this one will be close. In case you don't have time to listen to all two hours of oral argument; I've summarized the highlights in just a few minutes. Listen here.
Tomorrow, SCOTUS takes up the question of whether the federal government can coerce the States into a massive expansion of Medicaid. I'll be back with highlights from that argument. Stay tuned, but don't break out the champagne just yet.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
So tomorrow is Professor Epstein Day?
Jul '11
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Tomorrows argument will determine if states have any power to push back against the carrot and stick approach from the Feds. Today's debate was about whether the blood of our patriots was spilled so power hungry scum could run nearly every aspect of our lives from flow charts in DC.
Mar '12
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
I heard a clip from the argument in which Sotomayor quotes Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, using him to support the modern lefty reading Commerce Clause:
Not sure that's fair to Marshall:
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/22/1/case.html
"It is not intended to say that these words comprehend that commerce which is completely internal, which is carried on between man and man in a State, or between different parts of the same State, and which does not extend to or affect other States. Such a power would be inconvenient, and is certainly unnecessary."
Another way of saying roughly the same thing, is that if Congress has the legal authority "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states," it necessarily implies that there is commerce that is not interstate. Otherwise the clause would have said "to regulate commerce" full stop. Marshall understood that. Many on the Court seem to think that there is no such thing as intra-state commerce.
Mar '12
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
P.S. As I noted before, would the Administration's logic also justify a tax on abortion. By not having babies, people are choosing to diminish the tax base, thus making it harder to pay for health care, etc.
http://ricochet.com/member-feed/Why-Conservatives-Should-Stop-Worrying-and-Learn-to-Love-Obamacare
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Scarlet Pimpernel: I heard a clip from the argument in which Sotomayor quotes Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, using him to support the modern lefty reading Commerce Clause:
Not sure that's fair to Marshall:
· 21 minutes ago
I'm not surprised, actually. Marshall was a disciple of Hamilton, and there's certainly an argument that he used his power to advance the centralizing agenda that Hamilton wanted, but couldn't get through the Philadelphia convention. See "Hamilton's Curse" buy Thomas DiLorenzo. Certainly, with respect to Gibbons, Marshall laid the foundation for the expansive reading of the Commerce Clause that ultimately prevailed in the New Deal.
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Scarlet Pimpernel: P.S. As I noted before, would the Administration's logic also justify a tax on abortion. By not having babies, people are choosing to diminish the tax base, thus making it harder to pay for health care, etc.
http://ricochet.com/member-feed/Why-Conservatives-Should-Stop-Worrying-and-Learn-to-Love-Obamacare · 27 minutes ago
Ah well. There liberals would object that Congress can't exercise its taxing power in a way that violates the Bill of Rights (well, okay, abortion isn't in the Bill of Rights, but it's there in the "penumbra"). Under the horrible Casey doctrine, any law that "burdens" the abortion right is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, liberals couldn't care less about government mandates that violate, say, the 10th Amendment....
Jun '11
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Seems a nice start.
Edited on March 28, 2012 at 3:20amMar '12
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Seems to be that saying that there is no commerce that is not interstate is rather different from what Marshall said.And even Hamilton said in his brief in defense of the Bank that the federal government could not create a corporation to regulate the police of Philadelphia, because Congress has no authority under the constitution to regulate the police of Philadelphia.Now the Left claims Congress may regulation the policy power nationally.
Mar '12
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
And how is a tax on abortion any different from a sales tax on newspaper, or on the purchase of a gun, etc?
Jun '11
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Thanks Adam for your excellent recap. It's hard to believe the central planning side didn't have a a better central plan.
They had to know generally what was coming.
Sep '10
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
"Stay tuned, but don't break out the champagne just yet."
Precisely.
It's that pesky, faded old document, the Constitution, that is just getting in the way of the liberals quest for complete power. When Justice Kennedy is all that prevents its complete oblivion, we're on very dangerous ground.
Jun '10
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
It seems to me that Obamacare proponents are one-upping the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, essentially that an individual can engage in commerce by not engaging in commerce thus smashing together disparate parallel universes into one where Schrodinger's Cat is alive and dead all at the same time but now in one universe not two (or more).
To follow Quantum Theory after the High Court strikes down the law it will survive in another universe where Americans will eventually become slaves to a totalitarian regime plunging into a thousand years of darkness.
Now telepathically sending thoughts to Justice Kennedy to do the right thing...even though it's in my other universe where I believe telepathy really works. At least that's what my clone tells me.
Edited on March 28, 2012 at 5:24amDec '10
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Adam,
Again I defer to your expert analysis. However, I will continue to give you my video thoughts.
First, when we are young we love Hollywood's Good vs. Evil. We wish it was this way, the incredibly brave wildly self sacrificing good destroys the evil. At the end of the heroic charge the good guy kills the bad guy.
However, as we get older we realize how mixed life's messages are and become more realistic. Winning is much more difficult. We have learned that winning requires cunning and reserve.
If we get old enough we realize that Gd is our real secret weapon and so we understand the power of prayer.
Regards,
Jim
May '10
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Thanks very much, Adam. Very helpful for us laymen trying to keep up.
Jun '10
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Should we read anything into Justice Sotomayor's questions to Verrilli? Or is the consensus that she is simply trying to appear fair-minded and impartial...but ultimately will side with the Obama administration? We've seen justices once thought conservative prior to appointment wander off the reservation; but am I being naive to assume that this could ever happen to a liberal judge who just might consider Obamacare a smidge of an overreach even by her ideological tribe? Are there any factors in her background and experience that would suggest she might not side with Ginsberg and Kagan on this one? Anything? Bueller? Bueller?
Oct '10
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Yes, thank you very much Adam. I found it interesting listening to the gov't trying to give an example of a limit to the power even after this new expansion of power. I wonder: Is it a coincidence that the only things the gov't wouldn't be able to do are the things they're not interested regulating at this moment? Or am I being too harsh?
Mar '11
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Adam Freedman
Scarlet Pimpernel: I heard a clip from the argument in which Sotomayor quotes Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, using him to support the modern lefty reading Commerce Clause:
Not sure that's fair to Marshall:
· 21 minutes ago
I'm not surprised, actually. Marshall was a disciple of Hamilton, and there's certainly an argument that he used his power to advance the centralizing agenda that Hamilton wanted, but couldn't get through the Philadelphia convention. See "Hamilton's Curse" buy Thomas DiLorenzo. Certainly, with respect to Gibbons, Marshall laid the foundation for the expansive reading of the Commerce Clause that ultimately prevailed in the New Deal. · 15 hours ago
I call Hamilton "the Worst Founder". Richard Brookhiser wouldn't like that, but tough. The guy basically wanted near-unlimited power for the Federal government, and was the driving force behind the push for a "President for Life". Truth be told, Hamilton wanted a royal government for the United States without the royal trappings.
Re: ObamaCare Showdown: Quick Recap of Today's Argument
Lucid, straightforward, and serenely engaging. Is it too late, Adam, for you to become a law school professor--and for me to enroll in your classes?