Obamacare Unconstitutional

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, was just ruled unconstitutional.

The centerpiece of Obamacare is the individual mandate. For those who've been ignoring the news for a while, basically you are compelled by government to purchase health care, and if you opt out, you face fines. Unpaid fines to the government don't result in the government going "shucks, we didn't really mean it", they result in jail time. Try it this year with the IRS.

They give you free health care in there, too.

J.B.H. wrote about the unconstitutionality of Obamacare a while back.

Jake Tapper from ABC asked Obama about the fine system and the president admitted he agreed fines for noncompliance were necessary.

And there are jail time penalties in the bill:

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…”

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.”

But for now, a judge has ruled against Obamacare and the "buy it or go to jail" mandate - and invalidating the entire bill. Next step is the government going to the supreme court to push for it again.

Ultimately, the question is one of the scope of federal power and the ability for the government to stretch the commerce clause to encompass any absurd suppression of citizens' rights.

This started in no small part under one of the last giant progressive presidents, FDR. Wickard v. Filburn. Filburn was a farmer who was growing extra wheat for himself to feed his livestock. The government had mandated the amount of wheat that could be grown in order to drive up the price of wheat and "help" farmers.

To begin with, it's Keynesian economics, which are predicated on meddling by a bureaucrat who believes they know more than the person on the ground - and the bureaucrat ultimately using the government's gun against the American person who rejects them. The price was low and that "hurt" farmers. But rather than support farmers growing as much wheat as possible by offering tax cuts for farmers or something - leading to more wheat and fewer hungry people, the government decided to limit the amount of wheat. Supply goes down, demand goes up. Of course, limiting the amount of food results in famines... but the bureaucrat in DC doesn't feel it.

The fedgov is hurting people in California's Central Valley right now. This time, rather than favor the price of wheat over farmers, they favor a fish over farmers.

The EPA hates Americans of Mexican descent. Obama hates brown people!

Anyhow, Filburn was growing wheat for himself, and the government (FDR's supreme court), ruled that the government could regulate crops grown for private use, as they "influence the market". The idea was that since Filburn wasn't buying wheat at government-inflated prices, he could also not use his own land to grow wheat to feed his own livestock, as his act of not buying wheat influenced the price somewhere, no matter how miniscule.

Since he used his own land to grow his own wheat and not buy government wheat he was influencing the price of wheat by taking out his buying power. It's like the government looking at the hooligan in the Broken Window Fallacy and going "we should smash some more windows!"

Filburn's right to his own property and his own enterprise on his own land were violated. The government ruled that through the Commerce Clause that it could tell you what to do with your own assets. This is what Obamacare was doing until it was ruled invalid - except now rather than just growing your own wheat, Obamacare took it one step further. If you didn't spend your money, you were subject to penalties.

The Commerce Clause is thus:
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes

What does this mean? According to SCOTUS in Gonzales V Raich, which illegalized home-grown marijuana:
The Commerce Clause emerged as the Framers' response to the central problem giving rise to the Constitution itself: the absence of any federal commerce power under the Articles of Confederation. For the first century of our history, the primary use of the Clause was to preclude the kind of discriminatory state legislation that had once been permissible. Then, in response to rapid industrial development and an increasingly interdependent national economy, Congress “ushered in a new era of federal regulation under the commerce power,” beginning with the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890.

What's it really mean?
It was set up so that trading between states would be regular. So that if someone in Vermont wanted to sell something in Maine, they didn't have to pay tariffs to cross New Hampshire. That's about it. It was to keep Kansas from telling flights across the state they have to stop selling drinks at the state line. That was the purpose.

The purpose was not to tell a farmer that if he grew wheat for himself he'd go to jail, or to tell you that when you work for your money, you have to buy a healthcare plan or go to jail.

For those who would contend that not being a lawyer means that you, Joe, Jane, Pedro, Shaniqua or Vinh don't have a voice, that's nonsense. The Constitution was not written in some esoteric language. It's pretty plain even now.

You don't get from this:
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes

To this:
“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…”

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.”

Without a hefty load of BS between them. If you don't spend you money the way the govt says, you got to jail. Nonsense.

What Freedom Demands

What Freedom Demands
posted at 10:12 am on March 22, 2010 by Doctor Zero

Tonight, self-appointed wise men in Washington are steamrolling the objections of sixty to seventy percent of the population, and forcing a massive health-care bill down our throats “for our own good.” Presumably the backroom deals, corrupt payoffs, Congressional Budget Office accounting tricks, threats of unconstitutional parliamentary maneuvers, and betrayals of principle are also for our own good. What do you know? Banana republics turn out to be the highest evolution of government – the only form of the State equipped to take proper care of its citizens, by lying to them and trapping them in legislative cages over their howling protests.

Read it all here.

Some folks are already just saying no.
http://repealit.org/

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“This is what change looks like.” - President Barack Hussein Obama 3/23/10

“To state the obvious this is a historic day... history is made when a leader's passion is married to principal.... Mr. President you are that leader." - Vice President Joe Biden 3/23/10

---
President Obama said last night this proves this is a government of the people, and by the people, except for the 55 percent of the people who opposed him. - Jay Leno, 3/22/10

In Obama's America, Government Leads You!

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, Part II

Take the ten minutes to listen to words that sound like they were spoken yesterday, not in 1961:


Change the names of the Congressmen to Pelosi, Reid, Slaughter, Waxman, Obama, and it's the same push for socialism then as is today.

Except today, the Congressmen don't bother writing back. They'll just do what they want, because they've decided they're the ruling class.

And the media lapdogs play along.

Health Care - The Big Picture Is Bureaucracy For Life

Mark Steyn lays out the case here.

So there was President Obama giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that "now is the hour when we must seize the moment," the same moment he's been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.

Why is he doing this? Why let "health" "care" "reform" stagger on like the rotting husk in a low-grade creature feature who refuses to stay dead no matter how many stakes you pound through his chest?

Because it's worth it. Big time. I've been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture.

It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible.

...

Compassionate statism: "We shut down the business that employed you, but now we'll give you bread. We feel your pain. Don't you love what we for you do on your behalf? We put your doctor out of business, but we'll take care of you. Now get to the back of the line."

Steyn continues:

Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever expanding number of government jobs will be statists — sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering multiculti statists, sometimes fluffily "compassionate" statists, but always statists.

The short history of the postwar welfare state is that you don't need a president-for-life if you've got a bureaucracy-for-life: The people can elect "conservatives," as the Germans have done and the British are about to do, and the left is mostly relaxed about it because, in all but exceptional cases (Thatcher), they fulfill the same function in the system as the first-year boys at wintry English boarding schools who for tuppence-ha'penny or some such would agree to go and warm the seat in the unheated lavatories until the prefects strolled in and took their rightful place.

Republicans are good at keeping the seat warm. A big-time GOP consultant was on TV crowing that Republicans wanted the Dems to pass ObamaCare because it's so unpopular it will guarantee a GOP sweep in November.

Okay, then what? You'll roll it back — like you've rolled back all those other unsustainable entitlements premised on cobwebbed actuarial tables from 80 years ago?

Like you've undone the Department of Education and of Energy and all the other nickel 'n' dime novelties of even a universally reviled one-term loser like Jimmy Carter?

Andrew McCarthy concluded a shrewd analysis of the political realities thus:

"Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?"

Read it all here:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=525661

Yuri Bezmenov points out that it only takes 15 years to fundamentally change a society by subverting education, which results in a generation of children who think according to how they're taught. If you make a generation beholden to government, they won't think any different.

Thomas Sowell talks about how he and his wife paid for their first child's birth in installments, how they lived without health care, and how before employers were nigh mandated to provide health insurance, people paid for doctors' visits with their own money. Thomas Sowell is of a considerably older generation.

Like social security, like unemployment, like any of these other progressive social programs that redistribute wealth and are viewed as "good" by the newer generations, all it takes is one generation raised on the handout to accept it and make it that much more difficult to discard.

The imposition of the chains will be such that people will forget what it's like to live without them. They'll wonder how they'll take care of themselves without government to tell them how to live. Progressives/leftists/statists seek it because it makes themselves valuable, and gives them power over the people.

Works on the personal scale, the local scale, and the national scale.

"Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character. . . . " - Grover Cleveland

Reconciliation Barney Style

Let's say you want to pass a bill in the US Senate.

To start, a bill requires a majority to pass. It gets proposed and talked about in committees, then it goes to the floor.

In the senate, before they pass a bill, they have to talk about it. If someone wants to delay the vote, they can filibuster. A filibuster is the procedure by which the senate can talk as long as they like (resulting in hours of CSPAN programming of senators reading the newspaper) unless 2/3 votes for cloture. Except the democrats changed it to 3/5 of senators "duly chosen and sworn" in the 1970s. So you only need 60 votes to stop anyone from talking about a bill and push the bill to a vote. Those 60 votes are what's referred to as a "supermajority", because those 60 can override any filibuster and thus put any bill up for a vote and pass anything they wish.

The democrats, up until the election of Scott Brown, had a 60 vote supermajority. They could push any bill to a vote, overriding any filibusters or objections, and then simply pass them. The democrats, up until Scott Brown's election in Massachussetts, could've passed anything they wanted in the senate. Nothing procedurally stood in their way.

The American people, by the tens if not hundreds of millions, opposed the democrats' attempts at forcing government-run health care.

Just a few.

This resulted in a few democrats being unwilling to commit to a vote for health care, because they doubted they'd be reelected in their home districts. Thus there were specific payoffs included in the "health care" bill to provide money for the senators' home districts. Specifically the "Louisiana Purchase" to secure Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu's (D) vote and the"Cornhusker Kickback" to secure Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson's (D) vote. The purpose of this pork was to help the senators counter their constituents' complaints by saying "look what I got for you".

Even then, the democrats couldn't get it together. Enough democrats were afraid for their own seats. They also may have been afraid of falling out of favor with the administration. Those who would be in favor with the administration might get some cushy job as a department secretary or an ambassador - something they could maintain their personal quality of life and status with.

So what's a democrat set on passing a bill whether the people want it or not to do? Reconciliation.

So what exactly is reconciliation? The short version is that you can pass a bill with 50 votes and ignore the filibuster. It's supposed to be primarily for tax bills.

It seems like it can lead to a tyranny of the majority, by simply overruling the minority. A lot of people oppose it.

Especially racist bigot hatemonger extremist right-wingnut rethuglican teabaggers who hate Obama like these racist bigot extremist right-wingnut rethuglican teabaggers:

Oh, wait.

I guess abuse of power only matters when it's republicans trying to confirm a judge using a rule the democrats created, rather than democrats trying to control 1/6th of the US economy, using the rule they created in the 1970s.

Liberal fascism in action.

Czar Wars Episode 3: Cass Sunstein: Regulatory Czar

Image via Wikipedia

Our most daunting task to date is going to be giving you all the information when it comes to Mr. Cass Sunstein, one of the few "Czars" who has been confirmed by the senate. From proposing a 2nd bill of rights to advocating that our pets are entitled to representation, Mr. Sunstein offers us a look of what it means to truly be out of touch with reality.

Mr. Sunstein is a "constitutional" (I use the term loosely) lawyer. He is on record for the following statements made either in print or in the media:

On terminal patients: "the state owns the rights to body parts of people who are dead or in certain hopeless conditions, and it can remove their organs without asking anyone's permission.... Though it may sound grotesque, routine removal is not impossible to defend.... In theory, it would save lives, and it would do so without intruding on anyone who has any prospect for life."

My question is since when does anything having to do with my body belong to the state? If I want to be a donor that is all fine and good, after I am dead take what you need. If I am still breathing hands off the scalpel and keep trying to save my life.

Sunstein is also on record for saying things like:

"(the) socialist movement (never took hold because of the)...."smaller and weaker political left or lack of enthusiasm for redistributive programs."

No kidding this is America.

"If the United States agrees to participate in a climate change agreement on terms that are not in the nation's interest, but that help the world as a whole, there would be no reason for complaint, certainly if such participation is more helpful to poor nations than conventional foreign-aid alternatives."

Again this is America we don't believe in this type of thinking. Any charity we give comes from donations to non-profits or volunteering our time.

Sunstein also believes:

"The absence of a European-style social welfare state is certainly connected with the widespread perception among the white majority that the relevant programs would disproportionately benefit African Americans (and more recently Hispanics)...."

So every white man or woman out there is a racist and that is why we do not want socialism? Are you serious? He also lends support to communism by stating:

"During the Cold War, the debate about [social welfare] guarantees took the form of pervasive disagreement between the United States and its communist adversaries. Americans emphasized the importance of civil and political liberties, above all free speech and freedom of religion, while communist nations stressed the right to a job, health care, and a social minimum.... I think this debate was unhelpful; it is most plausible to see the two sets of rights as mutually reinforcing, not antagonistic."

Really, so how do we pay enough taxes to ensure everyone has a home, a job, health care, a decent wage? Also the Soviets weren't big on free speech nor religion because they wanted to replace religion that involves the soul with a religion that involves the state, and to accomplish that they could not afford to have people professing their beliefs freely so they also heavily suppressed freedom of speech.

Sunstein has also proposed a 2nd Bill of rights which entitles the following:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation" -- Ok. What if I don't have the proper skill set or intelligence to be of use?

"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation." -- Define adequate are we talking Latrell Sprewell ( the Minnesota Timberwolves offered Sprewell a 3-year, $21 million contract extension, substantially less than what his then-current contract paid him. Insulted, he publicly vented his outrage, declaring, "I have a family to feed.") adequate? Or are we talking Jed Clampett before he discovered oil?

"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living." -- Again please define "decent living" are we talking barely surviving or living in style? Who do we fund it?

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad." -- In the free market business rise and fall based on the decisions of that leadership. We have no business leveling the playing field. If a person can corner the market by supplying a better product at a cheaper price, more power to him.

"The right of every family to a decent home." -- Aren't we in trouble from this right now? Isn't the federal government in charge of making loans through Freddie and Fannie? --Wasn't that part of Barney Frank's progressive agenda?

"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health." -- Heath care is a service, it is not a right. If you can't afford it, consider changing your life style or by getting a better job.

"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment." -- What does this entail? Don't we already have Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Does it mean that I have the right to protection from defecating on myself when I am 100 years old?

"The right to a good education." -- This one is a tough one to argue but in this day and age there are already several programs that help people go to university and get a degree. Does it really need to be legislated?

So after taking all of that in it is fairly clear that government is supposed to control and decide all the issues of your life. Do you trust them to do a good job if the 2nd Bill of Rights gets implemented? I don't.

Cass also has interesting views on abortion like:

"I have argued that the Constitution ... forbids government from refusing to pay the expenses of abortion in cases of rape or incest, at least if government pays for childbirth in such cases.... There would be no tension with the establishment clause if people with religious or other objections were forced to pay for that procedure (abortion). Indeed, taxpayers are often forced to pay for things – national defense, welfare, certain forms of art, and others – to which they have powerful moral and even religious objections."

So, not only does he espouse federal funding of murdering unborn children but he expects the average citizen to be forced to help pay for it.

He is also a fan of dismantling free speech:

"purely commercial (television) stations (should) provide financial subsidies to public television or to commercial stations that agree to provide less profitable but high-quality programming.... worthwhile to consider more dramatic approaches as well."

Like:

"compulsory public-affairs programming, right of reply, content review by nonpartisan experts or guidelines to encourage attention to public issues and diversity of view.... It seems quite possible that a law that contained regulatory remedies would promote rather than undermine the 'freedom of speech,'

Really, so Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and other would be forced to present "both" sides of the issue or be forced off the air. If they chose to comply and couldn't find an "opposing" viewpoint then they would be unable to air the story or segment. How do you like that for freedom of speech?

Last and possibly the most interesting is his views on animals and their "interest:"

"If we focus on suffering, as I believe that we should, it is not necessarily impermissible to kill animals and use them for food; but it is entirely impermissible to be indifferent to their interests while they are alive. So too for other animals in farms, even or perhaps especially if they are being used for the benefit of human beings."

While I have never advocated the mistreatment of animals do they deserve legal representation? Sunstein thinks so:

“We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are
persons, or that they are not property. A state could certainly confer rights on a pristine area, or a painting, and allow people to bring suit on its behalf, without therefore saying that that area and that painting may not be owned. It might, in these circumstances, seem puzzling that so many people are focusing on the question of whether animals are property. We could retain the idea of property but also give animals far more protection against injury or neglect of their interests.”

Wow, I mean wow, really? So how would my dog, if she became distraught because I only give her a cup of dry dog food instead of a can of "wet" dog food retain that lawyer?

If your interested in finding out more on Cass Sunstein here is a PDF file full of quotes.

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What Liberals Say....

Image via Wikipedia

Folks I came across this little website. It has quotes from various leaders and soldiers of the Liberal Establishment. Below, I am going to post a few of the more important ones to me.

"Warren [will] tell you what his preference is...let the market work...and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute it. That way you're not impending efficiency, and your achieving equity on the back end."
-Barack Obama
from New York Times Magazine

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminist and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois societies stifling conventions. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated. But this strategy alone couldn't provide the distance I wanted, from Joyce or my past. After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerant. No, it remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.
-Barack Obama
Human Events

"Who really cares about it being unconstitutional?"
-Tonya Payne, Pittsburgh City Council Woman
The Pittsburgh Post - Gazette

"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what its like to be a teen aged mom, the empathy to understand what its like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges."
-Barack Obama
Mark Murray Article from MSNBC

On Iran: "They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us."
-Barack Obama
Speech in Oregon

"Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where its really at."
-Bill Ayers, Mentor of Barack Obama
Memoir Excerpt

"A system of world order - preferably a system of world government - is mandatory.... The proud nations someday will see the light, and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty."
-Walter Cronkite
A Reporter's Life

"I hear about Tony Snow [and his colon cancer] and say to myself, well, stand up everyday, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and, well, how could cancer not grow in you? Work for Fox News, spinning the truth into a billion knots and how can your gut not rot?
-Charles Karel Bouley
ABC Radio talk show host

"Our problem today is too little government."
- Congressman Barney Frank
The American, Article by Tory Newmyer

I think its safe to say that these are not the type of people our country needs. From these quotes you can tell what types of people these are. They want to destroy the America of our founding fathers. They want to replace the values that have made this country the greatest in the world with an all powerful federal government, that will tell us how to raise our children, raise our taxes, destroy traditional families, practice reverse discrimination, tell us what jobs we will work, what schools we will attend.

Independence Day is coming, when we declared tyranny from the abuses of a despot. Now Liberals [progressives] wearing the clothing of both republicans and democrats are trying to bring back the tyranny because they do not believe in the dream that our founding fathers have passed on to us. They want to take care of us so we don't have anything to worry over. They promise us a good living wage, good government sponsored health care, retirement through social security. None of these things are working. Let a man's wage be determined by the market. Let that wage be invested properly in private health care and a private retirement plan. Do you want a government official telling you that you aren't worth the risk to have that tumor removed? Do you want the government to come back in 30 years when your approaching retirement to tell you that social security is bankrupt?

Think about these things on Saturday while your enjoying the time with your family. I wish everyone a happy 4th. Take care and God bless.