Obama’s Alinsky Style Supreme Court Attack

April 3, 2012 2 Comments

President Obama declared war on the Supreme Court yesterday. One wonders if he hasn’t been leaked information about how the Friday’s vote went down because Obama was particularly outraged at the prospect of Obamacare being ruled unconstitutional. He declared that ruling Obamacare unconstitutional would be an unprecedented move by the Supreme Court, undoing a law the democratically elected Congress passed. It is clear what the Democrat strategy is going to be if Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional. They’re going to accuse the Court of being partisan and if that doesn’t fail the left will go to its old standby and call conservatives morons.

Obama once again displayed his narcissism for the world to see yesterday. As though nothing negative has ever happened to any other President before. As though other President’s haven’t seen legislation they supported ruled unconstitutional. Obama displayed a glaring lack of historical knowledge when it comes to the Supreme Court. FDR saw eight of his New Deal programs ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The Court went so far as to shut down FDR’s beloved NRA and it’s infamously nasty blue eagle program. The court also ruled various wage and price controls unconstitutional, undoing an important part of FDR’s socialist New Deal. Obama’s lack of historical knowledge is glaring considering he’s a former Constitutional law professor. You would think he would know about these cases.

Obama attacked conservatives who oppose judicial activism, a thinly veiled warning to those on the court who support original construction. In making this argument Obama shows he doesn’t even understand what the conservative argument is regarding the Constitution. Judicial activism has given us such gems as Roe v Wade wherein rights are created out of thin air and deemed constitutional. Original construction opposes the creation of additional rights, it also opposes the Federal government acting outside of the limited enumerated powers in the Constitutional. Obamacare is unconstitutional because the Constitution doesn’t grant the government the power to order Americans to buy products. Obama seems to think conservatives believe the Congress can do whatever it wants without any comment from the judiciary. It’s a patently ignorant position coming from a Constitutional law professor.

The truth is Obama doesn’t care what original construction is and he isn’t interested in what conservative jurisprudence believes. All he cares about is demonizing his enemies ala Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. He’s doing two things in his comments on the Supreme Court. First he’s threatening them, likely trying to scare Kennedy into switching sides. Second, he’s setting up the narrative for late June if Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional. He’s going to demonize a Supreme Court that disagrees with him. He’ll call them partisan, though one wonders what we are to consider the four Democrat appointees who likely will vote Obamacare Constitutional. They won’t be partisans of course, only Republicans are.

Obama believes a whole lot of Constitution law professors agree with him. No doubt he’s correct. But just because a bunch of professors think something doesn’t make it so. Apparently Obama either didn’t pay attention or doesn’t care to pay attention to the 27 states who challenged Obamacare’s Constitutionality or to the lower courts who ruled it unconstitutional. Perhaps he didn’t read any of the briefs filed by any of the lawyers who believe it’s unconstitutional. As an attorney, Obama ought to know there are two sides to every issue. He displays incredible ignorance in pretending otherwise. But of course he’s not interested in acknowledging the “enemy’s” point of view. He’s only interested in demonizing it. This is what happens when we elect a community rabble rouser, I mean a community organizer.

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Not A Good Day For Obamacare

March 27, 2012 4 Comments

Last week I opined that Obamacare would be ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. In that piece I reserved the right to change my position based on the arguments made before the court. Today the court heard arguments on the individual mandate. What is clear is that Obamacare is in serious trouble. There’s no reason for us to get overly excited yet but if the comments of the five Republican appointees is any indication Obamacare may be going down in flames.

Chief Justice Roberts was one of the two conservatives who was thought to be on the fence. It became clear today that he isn’t as on the fence as originally thought. He wondered whether the government could force citizens to buy cell phones because they might need emergency services one day. Scallia wondered if the government could force us to buy broccoli, after all it’s healthy. Justice Alito asked if we could be forced to buy prepaid funeral services, since we’ll all need to be disposed of. Roberts seems to be buying into this line of reasoning, that being if the government can force us to buy health insurance there isn’t anything they can’t force us to buy.

The real fence sitter though has always been Justice Kennedy. Kennedy has always been a moderate, though he has trended towards the right lately. It still isn’t clear which way Kennedy will vote. But his line of questioning was clearly in opposition to Obamacare. Kennedy said during today’s hearing:

But the reason, the reason this is concerning, is because it requires the individual to do an affirmative act. In the law of torts our tradition, our law, has been that you don’t have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and you do not have a duty to stop him absent some relation between you. And there is some severe moral criticisms of that rule, but that’s generally the rule.

And here the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases and that changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in the very fundamental way.

Of course this doesn’t mean that Kennedy is going to vote a certain way. But his line of questioning and his statements were clearly in opposition to the Obamacare law. It’s entirely possible that he’s asking these questions and making these statements to see how the solicitor general responds. Kennedy could be swayed by his arguments. But in the very least, Kennedy is coming from a position opposed to Obamacare’s constitutionality.

What’s most interesting though is that the Supreme Court seems the siding with the very arguments Obama made against the individual mandate. You’ll recall Obama opposed the individual mandate before he supported it. This took place during the 2008 Democrat Primary wherein Obama supported an outright socialist model while Hillary supported an individual mandate. Obama made all the arguments the five conservatives on the Court made today.

Obamacare has a real shot at being ruled unconstitutional. We don’t know how the justices will react to the attorney’s arguments and we won’t get to find out until late June. But if their line of questioning is any indication, Obamacare is going down. Liberals must hold out hope that Kennedy can be swayed during the court’s private discussions after this week’s hearings. It’s always possible that a Justice can be convinced to vote a different way, it’s happened before. The odds of Obamacare being ruled unconstitutional have increased substantially though.

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Why Obamacare Will Be Ruled Constitutional

March 23, 2012 4 Comments

Obamacare should be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It is patently absurd that the Commerce Clause would allow the Federal government to order Americans to buy a product. It’s also absurd that the Necessary and Proper Clause would be used to allow the government to do the same thing. Nevertheless when the Court takes up the issue in oral arguments next week and when it delivers its opinion in June, Obamacare will be ruled constitutional on a 5-4 vote. This power grab by the government will forever doom our national economy, it will reach far beyond health care.

Let’s go into this assuming the four liberal justices all support the Constitutionality of Obamacare. Let’s also assume that Scalia, Alito and Thomas oppose it. The issue then comes down to Roberts and Kennedy. Roberts tends to take the more traditional conservative approach to the Constitution, which is to say he doesn’t like to rule things unconstitutional but would rather allow Congress work out all the political details. In United States v Comstock 130 S.Ct. 1949, 176 L.Ed.2d 878 (2010) Roberts sided with the liberals and deferred to Congress concerning the detention of sexually dangerous prisoners who had completed their sentence.

The Obama administration is relying heavily on this case, focusing at least a portion of their brief directly at Justice Roberts. They clearly think there’s a chance that Roberts will simply defer to Congress. However we cannot forget that Roberts sided with the conservatives in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission 130 S.Ct. 876, 175 L.Ed.2d 753 (2010). In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled that the McCain-Feingold act, which severely limited political free speech was unconstitutional. In short, neither Roberts or Kennedy deferred to Congress on this matter. Meaning that the left cannot rely upon their natural inclination to defer.

Kennedy has gone back and forth on the Commerce Clause throughout his years on the Supreme Court. There are periods when Kennedy finds no wrong in Congress and other periods when Kennedy cannot seem to find anything they pass Constitutional. The administration is however focusing on Gonzales v. Raich 545 U.S. 1, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005). Gonzales focuses on medical marijuana’s sale via the Commerce Clause. Kennedy ruled for an expansive view of the Commerce Clause in this case, which is why the administration is focusing on it and why we should be nervous.

Three lower court conservatives have ruled the individual mandate constitutional, which could aid either Kennedy or Roberts to do the same. The view these judges take is that the mandate is a political issue, best left to Congress. This is hardly a conservative position at all as it renders the Constitution irrelevant to the whole matter. It’s easier for lower courts to simply rule matters Constitutional because they know there is always an appeal available above them. The Supreme Court has to think beyond Obamacare itself, they need to ask themselves what sort of precedent this case will set and what that will mean for commerce in the future.

The one thing that may end up swaying Kennedy and Roberts isn’t something that’s in the briefs they’re reading. The administration decision on contraception, forcing religious organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church to pay for it despite their moral opposition, may end up hurting their case. It’s no secret that all of the Republican justices are Roman Catholics. Supreme Court justices don’t live in a vacuum, they know what’s going on outside the courthouse. Roberts and Kennedy may very well not like the administration’s attack on religious freedom and that could hurt the case in favor of Obamacare.

Nevertheless, Obamacare will be ruled constitutional by the court. It will be a 5-4 decision with Kennedy as the deciding vote. Roberts has showed a willingness to oppose Congress before, so he ought to be able to do it again. Kennedy on the other hand has recently voted in favor of expanding the Commerce Clause and there’s no evidence to suggest he won’t this time around. As with all pre-argument opinions, I reserve the right to revise after next week’s oral arguments. We’re likely to have a very good idea where this case is heading by the end of next week.

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Obamacare Costs Double, Cause 4 Million To Lose Coverage

March 15, 2012 1 Comment

In 1965 when Congress passed Medicare the pols sold it as something that wouldn’t be particularly costly. They said in 1990 Medicare would only cost $12 billion, which included an allowance for inflation. When 1990 rolled around the program cost $107 billion or 9 times the estimate. In 2010 Medicare cost taxpayers $523 billion. When Obamacare was passed the Democrats told us it would cost $900 billion over 10 years, or $90 billion a year. This week the CBO doubled their estimate of Obamacare’s cost to just under $1.8 trillion over a decade. Keep in mind, Obamacare doesn’t even fully take effect until 2014.

Is anyone surprised by this news? You can bet that in a year or two the CBO will tell us it will cost twice their current estimate and still no one would be surprised. Congress routinely pulls this stunt wherein they claim that their programs will only cost a little bit of money but once everything is passed suddenly it costs twice as much. The Republicans foolishly passed the Rx drug bill in 2003 and magically the next year the cost estimate had doubled. It will end up costing taxpayers four times as much as we were told when the bill was going through Congress.

Obamacare isn’t going to cut any costs and is going to cost taxpayers a fortune. Everyone knew that when it was passed, even the Democrats who lied about it being a cost savings program. Obamacare isn’t anything more than an intermediate step toward outright socialist healthcare controlled by the government. The Democrats still aren’t honest about that. But then when a party spends the better part of a year telling the public Obamacare won’t cost taxpayers much and will be an overall cost savings truth isn’t exactly important.

Yesterday we talked about how America has become a regulation nation with hundreds of thousands of pages of Federal and state laws and regulations dictating our every move. Obamacare’s cost isn’t going to be seen in simply financial terms. It will also be seen in the 10,000 plus pages of regulations being created by the Obama administration. These regulations will dictate every healthcare action we take. The financial cost of Obamacare is staggering, the Democrats clearly lied about how much the law was going to cost. A substantial portion of the cost is going to be seen in the regulatory world where bureaucrats will obtain the power to control our health. Ultimately we won’t be able to opt out when the Democrats seal the deal and move us into a fully socialist health system.

The CBO estimates that 4 million people will lose insurance from their employer by 2016. That’s a direct result of the regulations created by Obamacare, both by the act itself and by regulations promulgated by the administration. The cost of health insurance is high as it is, Obamacare is making matters worse. Insurance premiums skyrocketed after Obamacare, in an industry that averages a profit of barely 2%. The increased prices aren’t paying dividends for the owners of health insurance stock, the increased prices are paying for compliance with Obamacare.

We knew Obamacare was going to be a mess when it was passed. We knew it wasn’t going to cost $90 billion a year and we knew it was cause health insurance premiums to skyrocket. We knew that the regulations created by Obamacare would give the Federal government vast power over our personal lives. All we can do now is pray that the Supreme Court would rule Obamacare unconstitutional and if Mitt Romney is the nominee, hold him to his promise to repeal Obamacare if he’s elected.

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Where Is The Leftist Outrage Over Obama’s Prayer Vigil?

March 10, 2012 2 Comments

The White House is concerned that Obamacare is going to be ruled unconstitutional. They’re currently working to shape the media narrative around the upcoming oral arguments in the case before the Supreme Court. The left is always a step ahead of the Republicans in this regard. While the GOP is fighting a pointless nomination battle, the left is controlling the media on the Obamacare case. The most interesting part of the administration’s attempt to control the narrative is their organization of prayer vigils. I thought prayer in the public square was an outrage and unconstitutional according to the left.

Can you imagine if President Bush had organized a prayer vigil before an important Supreme Court case? The shouts of theocracy from the left would be deafening. As it stands, the entire Bush administration years were spent listening to the left complain about theocracy for no other reason than Bush admitted that he prayed before making important decisions. Yet when the Obama administration organizes a prayer vigil before the Obamacare oral arguments the left remains completely silent.

This is yet another in a long line of hypocritical leftist actions. They cry theocracy when Republicans pray, when Democrats pray they say nothing. When Republican President’s organize a Bible study, it’s called a theocracy by the left. When a Democrat President organizes a prayer vigil, it’s not commented on at all by the left. When a conservative commentator calls a feminist activist a slut it’s an outrage. When a liberal commentator calls a Republican pol, out of office no less, a cunt the left says nothing. In fact the left says nothing whenever a liberal commentator says something sexist or racist but then react with indignant outrage when a conservative does something half as outrageous.

The double standard that liberals hold conservatives to is absolutely absurd. What’s pathetic is that the media goes right along with it. There won’t be any opinion stories masked as news stories quoting well connected liberals on their outrage over Obama’s prayer vigil. There won’t be any atheists whining and complaining on the front page of the New York Times. MSNBC won’t say anything negative about the Obama prayer vigil. But you can imagine their outrage if Bush had done such a thing, you can imagine the outrage if Romney were to pull such a stunt. The left might have an aneurism if Santorum held a prayer vigil.

The double standard is obvious. The media’s reporting of this double standard is non-existent. Obama holding a prayer vigil is good and noble, Bush praying is a sign of democracy. Among the leftist media, this is obvious. They don’t see the double standard because they aren’t objective. Keith Olbermann called Michelle Malkin a mashed up bag of meat with lipstick, the media said nothing because they agree. Countless left-wing commentators have called Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin morons, sluts, bitches and idiots and the media reacts without the slightest bit of outrage. They either agree with such statements or they agree with the outcome such statements are meant to create.

Obama is free to hold a prayer vigil if he so desires. It won’t change the outcome of Obamacare of course. But he’s free to do it. It isn’t a creation of theocracy, it isn’t a bad thing for America. What is a bad thing for America is the blatant double standard displayed by the left-wing media on these matters. We won’t see a single hit piece from the far left attacking public prayer. Don’t take this as a sign that the media has given up such reporting, it will return the second a Republican prays in public. In fact, they’re hitting Santorum for being religious while saying nothing of the White House organizing prayer vigils. The left has yet again exposed their hypocrisy and they’ve once again exposed media bias.

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Jack Lew Acknowledges Obamacare Is Health Fascism

February 13, 2012 7 Comments

New Obama Chief of Staff Jack Lew appeared on Fox News Sunday over the weekend. Lew declared that under Obamacare the President has the authority to order insurance companies to cover a service and cover that service for free. Lew went on to declare that forcing insurance companies to cover contraception wouldn’t actually cost the companies anything, pointing to alleged actuarial projections. Lew articulated for the first time that the Obama administration supports health fascism. He also articulated what many of us knew already, the Obama administration believes children are a financial burden.

How can there be freedom when the government can order health insurance companies to not only cover a certain product but cover that product for free? What Jack Lew defended yesterday is nothing short of health fascism. Fascism was a product of the left in the early 20th century. The difference between fascism and communism is that under fascism the government allowed the owners of businesses to keep their businesses. However those businesses had to do what the government told them to do, produce what they were told to produce in the quantity they were ordered at and by the employees the government told the business to employ. Essentially business owners became the government’s middle managers. Under communism, business owners were killed and the state took over both ownership and management.

When you look at what Lew said, how is the structure of Obamacare any different than the business structure in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy or Spain? You can keep your insurance company, but you’re going to run it the way Obama tells you to and you’ll be offering the products he wants. For free even if he so declares! There’s no freedom for anyone under Obamacare. The government is going to tell companies what they have to offer and we consumers have no choice but to purchase that which the government has ordered. It’s health fascism. Is this what the American people thought Obamacare was going to be? It seems highly unlikely.

But Lew didn’t stop there. He alleges that health insurance companies will break even if they pay for contraception. This of course implies that children are a financial burden worth reducing. In other words, children don’t matter a whole lot to the Obama administration. They’re like old people, a financial burden. In short, the Obama administration has reduced the joy of parenthood down to a pure financial number, determining it just isn’t worth it. Never mind the non-financial and non-quantitative positives of having children. Children are just another wasteful cost.

If children are a wasteful financial burden, as Lew suggests, and if the President now has the power to order insurance companies to offer products whether they want to or not, one is left to wonder how much control does the President have over our health? How long will it be before the President, be it Obama or someone else, believes they have the power of life and death?

Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger famously suggested parents be required to have a license before having children. Under Obamacare, is it possible this could happen? What a wonderful cost saving requirement this could be! And who would be able to stop it? All health power is vested in the President according to Obamacare. Sarah Palin was maligned for her death panels comment. In light of Lew’s recent statements, it’s hardly unreasonable to wonder what sort of end of life power is now vested in the President. If he can order insurance companies to offer products and services, can’t he also order them to stop offering services and products?

Obamacare was forced though Congress without the American people having a chance to see what it actually was. Nancy Pelosi so much as acknowledged this when it was being passed. Now we’re finding out just how much power the President has over our lives. Is this the America that the founders created? A nation where the President has the power to control our health and our health insurance? This whole contraception episode ought to make all Americans, including those who support contraception, wonder just how much power the President has over our health.

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When Did Our Health Become Subject To Presidential Dictates?

February 11, 2012 5 Comments

The last two weeks have been interesting on the Obamacare front. First the administration announced that churches would be required to fund contraception for their employees. Liberals cheered over this supposed defense of women’s health. Conservatives were outraged over this infringement on the free exercise clause. We further wondered when contraception became such a right that the choice to use it was something women could force someone else, namely religious organizations, to pay for it against said organization’s beliefs.

Fast forward to yesterday, Obama made a grand accommodation. Now instead of religious organizations directly paying for contraception insurance companies will be required to contact women and offer it free of charge. Liberals and the media are cheering this decision, the media in particular are fainting over Obama’s crafty decision. Conservatives are puzzled over how this is any different than the previous decision. After all who is going to pay for contraception? Generally insurance companies don’t just hand out freebies. The people paying for an insurance policy will end up paying for “free” contraception. Which means that if a religious organization is paying for an insurance policy for their employees they will in fact be paying for contraception. This isn’t a compromise or an accommodation. Obama is putting lipstick on a pig and telling us she’s beautiful.

But the real issue here, the one not being talked about, is when did the President obtain the authority to issue dictates like the two he’s made in the last few weeks? How did it get to be in America where the President alone determines what will be covered in a health insurance policy? This is the nation’s first real lesson in Obamacare. All authority on health matters comes from the White House. No longer are health insurers able to negotiate policies with insureds or with employers, those decisions will now all be made in Washington. If the President decides that contraception is part of an insurance policy, he’s able to do that and no one in the media questions how it is that the President obtained this sort of authority over our lives and our health.

It makes you wonder what other health decisions the President will be able to make. Suddenly the validity of Sarah Palin’s death panels increases. Because if the President can decide matters such as contraception without anyone questioning his authority, why can’t he set up end of life policies? It doesn’t matter whether Obama intends to create such policies now, the precedent has been set. Obama, in fact any President, can simply make declarations from the White House about insurance policies and no one questions his authority to do so. With that in mind, any imaginable health dictate can be made from the executive branch with little or no opposition. In other words, health has become a Washington dictatorship subject to the whims of the President.

This isn’t Constitutional and it isn’t American. Our nation was founded as one that loved freedom and had a limited government.  There is no freedom when our health is dictated to us by government bureaucrats and the President. There’s nothing limited about a government that believes it can, or is enabled under Obamacare, to make  decisions about our health. Obviously this is exactly what the single payer, socialist left wants. They want control of our health vested in the President. But for those of us who oppose Obamacare, this episode is a real wake up call. We knew this legislation was bad. But we’re finally seeing how bad it really is. Contraception isn’t the issue here at all, the issue is our very freedom.

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Economic Growth Slows Under Obama

July 29, 2011 2 Comments

Just a few months ago the Democrats declared they were responsible for the economy and were proud of it. Today we’ve discovered just how bad the economy is. Second quarter economic growth was only 1.3%. Worse, the government downgraded economic growth for the first quarter and last year’s fourth quarter. The government claimed growth at 1.9% during the first quarter, now they say it was only 0.4%. Fourth quarter growth dropped from 3.1% to 2.3%. It makes you wonder how much second quarter growth will be downgraded.

The economy is stagnating  under Obama. Unemployment remains high, job growth remains small. New unemployment claims were just under 400,000 last week. Long term unemployment is soaring, it takes an average of six months to find a job Obama. It wasn’t even six weeks under Bush. The black middle class is eroding as unemployment soars. Meanwhile the college kids who voted for Obama in 2008 don’t have jobs. Unemployment among the young is over 20%.

The Republicans and Democrats are fighting over a meaningless debt ceiling plan so that they don’t have to focus on the real problems this country faces. Government is to big, it spends to much money and taxes are to high. We have the highest corporate tax rates in the world yet we expect corporations to create jobs. How can they create jobs when their profits are funding a massive Federal government? How can we expect corporations to create jobs when Federal regulations funnel corporate money from job creation to compliance?

If you’re General Electric, the Obama administration has been great. GE has essentially traded good media coverage for Obama on NBC for massive tax breaks and regulatory influence. Except that GE isn’t creating jobs here in the US. They’re moving jobs to China. So while GE has great regulatory and tax influence within the Obama administration, they aren’t creating jobs here in the US.

There is one company that wants to create jobs here in the US but the Obama administration isn’t letting them. Boeing wants to build an airplane factory in South Carolina, which is a right to work state. The pro-union Obama administration has nixed the deal and wants the factory built in union Washington state. So for political purposes Obama is denying jobs to red state South Carolina in an attempt to shore up Washington state for the 2012 election. Unfortunately the result is that Boeing doesn’t seem willing to build the plant and thus there are no new jobs thanks to this administration.

The games this administration is playing with Boeing are the perfect example of why the economy is stagnating. You can multiply the Boeing situation by a thousand. The Obama administration is using its regulatory power to protect unions at the expense of jobs and the broader economy. This is why we had 0.4% growth in the first quarter and only 1.3% in the second quarter. Couple this with the massive spending going on in Washington, Obamacare (never discount how much Obamacare is costing us in jobs) and regulatory schemes and it’s no wonder the economy isn’t growing.

The economy is now the responsibility of President Obama. After $800 billion in a wasted Stimulus, Obamacare, and nearly $4 trillion in new debt, the economy is his. It’s falling apart because of Obama’s policies. The economy is his. Just wait unil inflation hits hard.

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Obama Lied About His Mother’s Deathbed Insurance Forms

July 13, 2011 2 Comments

Remember during the 2008 campaign and during the Obamacare debate when President Obama would wax poetic about his mother’s dying days? Remember how the President would practically shed a tear over the insurance forms she had to fill out and the denial of coverage because of a ‘pre-existing condition’? It turns out that story was a complete and total lie. The President told us this emotional story to convince us of our need for Obamacare. In other words, he lied in order to get the American public to support a program they otherwise wouldn’t support. Interestingly it really didn’t work.

Nevertheless President Obama lied about the circumstances surrounding his mother, Ann Dunham’s, insurance situation during her final month. Mrs. Dunham was employed and had full insurance for her cancer. She had a deductible and some minor out of pocket expenses that totaled a couple hundred dollars a month. It was these expenses that she sought coverage for, not from her health insurer but her disability insurer. Mrs. Dunham was never denied coverage from her health insurance carrier and she never had to fill out forms concerning any pre-existing condition for her health insurance.

Mrs. Dunham did have insurance forms to fill out and she had to show she didn’t have a pre-existing condition. But those forms and that accusation come from her disability insurer. President Obama had to know this, after all Mrs. Dunham threatened to sick her lawyer son on her disability carrier. The fact that he talked about his mother’s situation during the campaign and during the Obamacare debate suggests he knew exactly what was going on in Hawaii as his mother lay dying in a hospital room.

I don’t use the term liar lightly. Accusing someone of lying is a very powerful thing and as an attorney I try to limit using the term to only those people who I can prove are lying. Generally I like to use the term mislead because it doesn’t have the sting of liar. But in this case, liar fits. President Obama knew his mother was being denied disability benefits during her last month of life. He knew his mother was filling out forms for her disability insurance. President Obama is an attorney, he knows the difference between health insurance benefits and disability benefits. So when he told the American people that while dying in a hospital his mother was stuck filling out forms for health insurance based on denial for a pre-existing condition, he was lying. He knew she was filling out disability insurance forms, not health insurance forms.

The President lied in order to tug at our hearts and get us to support Obamacare. In the end, his lie didn’t tug at enough hearts. To this day a majority of Americans oppose Obamacare. Rasmussen has never shown less than 50% opposition to Obamacare, usually showing opposition in the mid to upper 50′s. Nevertheless, a lie is a lie and in this case the President told a blatant lie. He didn’t just mislead by not telling us all the facts, he lied about the forms his mother was filling out.

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Expanded Commerce Clause Means The End Of American Freedom

July 7, 2011 2 Comments

George Will made a terrific point on ABC’s ‘This Week’ last Sunday. During a round table discussion he posed the following question when the discussion turned to Obamacare’s requirement that private citizens purchase health insurance:

The question is, has the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce been so loosely construed that now Congress can do anything at all, that there is nothing it cannot do. Let me ask the three of you. Obviously, obesity and its costs affect interstate commerce. Does Congress have the constitutional power to require obese people to sign up for Weight Watchers? If not, why not?

The liberals on the ABC panel didn’t have a response to that question. We can extend Will’s line of questioning even further. Michelle Obama has stated numerous times that she believes children should eat fruits and vegetables. Can Congress then order parents to buy fruits and vegetables at the supermarket? Congress and the EPA both believe that clean air is a good thing, can they order Americans to buy home air purifiers?

If it is absurd to suggest that Congress has the power to order Americans to buy fruits, vegetables or air purifiers then why isn’t it absurd when Congress orders Americans to buy health insurance? Where exactly does Congress get the power to order Americans to buy anything, much less private sector products? The Commerce Clause surely doesn’t give Congress that power. It reads that Congress shall have the power:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;

Regulating commerce and forcing citizens to buy products are two different things. The regulation of commerce is limited to creating rules concerning the sale of goods across state lines, it does not include the power to force people to buy products.

We must take Obamacare’s health care purchase mandate to its logical conclusion. If Congress has the power to force Americans to buy private sector products, what freedom is left? Imagine a Congress that is flush with special interest lobbyists throwing money around left and right. Imagine a Congress ripe with corruption and backroom kickbacks. If the Supreme Court determines that the Commerce Clause allows Congress to force Americans to buy products, what sort of shenanigans do you suppose a corrupt Congress and lobbyists might pull? Is it that far out of the question for corporations to pay off Congressmen to pass laws ordering Americans to buy any product imaginable? No longer will businesses have to advertize their products to the masses in order to gain market share, they’ll just have to wine, dine and kickback a corrupt Congress.

This is the danger with Obamacare’s individual mandate. Even if you agree with Obamacare, surely you can see the potential dangers of an expanded interpretation of the Commerce Clause. If Congress can force Americans to buy health insurance, there is no private product on Earth that Congress cannot force Americans to buy. Fruits, vegetables, air purifiers, cars, baseball tickets, rubber tires, yo-yo’s, you name it Congress will have the power to force you to buy it.

An expanded interpretation of the Commerce Clause by the Supreme Court will mean the end of American freedom as we know it. If Americans aren’t free to choose what they want to buy, free from Federal government orders and mandates, then we no longer have freedom. It’s one thing for the Federal government to regulate business in accordance with the Commerce Clause, it’s another thing for the Federal government to force Americans to buy products from private businesses. If the Commerce Clause is expanded, we will have lost our freedom completely.

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