Obama Picks Stealth Leftist Merrick Garland For Supreme Court

President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland today to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. It's his way of creating a political issue by challenging the Senate Republicans to deny him a SCOTUS justice appointment of someone who appears qualified.

So far, the Senate isn't buying it. As Fox news reported, both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary chair Mike Lee are standing firm on the principle that a lame duck president should not nominate a Supreme Court Justice in an election year:

Yet within minutes, Republicans doubled down on their opposition to confirming any nominee in an election year, insisting that the vacant seat not be filled until a new president is sworn in.

“It is a president’s constitutional right to nominate a Supreme Court justice and it is the Senate’s constitutional right to act as a check on a president and withhold its consent,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor.

Obama, anticipating the swift resistance, urged Republicans to reconsider, adding it would be unprecedented for Garland not to at least get a hearing.

“I hope they’re fair. That’s all,” Obama said. “To give him a fair hearing and up or down vote.” [...]

A Senate confirmation is required for any nominee to join the bench.

Before the announcement, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also told Fox News that neither he nor his GOP colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee would back down and declared once more he would stop the nomination from going forward.

“We’ve been clear,” Lee said of his plan to reject Garland’s nomination.

If the principle of allowing the American people to have a voice in something like a Supreme Court pick is to be adhered to, Garland's nomination shouldn't even be considered no matter how qualified or unqualified he might be. If he gets a hearing and is rejected, it will just be a soundbite to paint Republicans as 'obstructionist.'

Any nominee President Obama proposes in an election year should be rejected forthwith simply on principle. "Fair' is not something in this president's vocabulary when it comes to applying it to others.

And when you do a little digging you find that there are other reasons Merrick Garland doesn't belong on the Court unless you favor a partisan Leftist tilt. It was none other than Pravda-on-the-Hudson that wrote that "If Judge Garland is confirmed, he could tip the ideological balance to create the most liberal Supreme Court in 50 years."

The same article wrote that according to a measure of judicial ideology developed by four political scientists and considered a "reasonably good predictor of voting on the Supreme Court," Garland is close to Justice Elena Kagan in terms of how he would rule.

That's hardly surprising when you look at his background. He's a stanch Democrat from Chicago and Harvard Law who was appointed to his D.C. Circuit seat by none other than Bill Clinton. Before that, he clerked for none other than the very far Left Warren Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. often considered one of the most left leaning justices in the Court's history. In his confirmation hearing in December 1995 to consider Garland's nomination to the D.C. Circuit, Garland that Brennan was one of the justices he most admired.

His paper trail is fairly limited and he's done some decent work as a prosecutor, but using that ancient wisdom, the apple usually doesn't fall far from the tree, and if it did, there's no way a hyper partisan president like Obama would have picked him. Garland can only be considered 'qualified' if you like the idea of a locked in Leftist majority in the Supreme Court.

We'll see if the GOP Senate has finally managed to grow a spine.

Justice Antonin Scalia..RIP

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead at an isolated Texas Ranch where he had gone for a conference, Cibolo Creek Creek Ranch in Marfa,Texas. He was 79 years old.

The cause of death is still unknown,although it is known that it wasn't a heart attack. Another odd factor is that he was found lying in bed with a pillow over his face. And for some reason, according to the AP, an autopsy was not deemed necessary.

Justice Scalia was a personal favorite of mine, someone for whom the Constitution meant what it said and whose opinions were not only scholarly but laced with a wicked, thoroughly entertaining wit. One of his best friends on the Court was none other that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, with whom he often attended the opera they both loved.

I'm sorry, and I hope events prove me wrong but this appears to have all the earmarks of a hit. While it remains to be seen if President Barack Hussein Obama will be able to shove another leftist ideologue on the Court, the more important aspect of this is how convenient it is for ginning up Democrat turnout and fundraising because 'the Supreme Court's at stake!'

Yes, it always was, but this puts a spotlight on it. The next president will likely be able to nominate 3-4 justices and the difference between whom Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would pick versus Ted Cruz or Donald Trump is simply night and day.

There actually is a precedent for not nominating justices in a presidential election year. Even the Democrats agreed on that one when it was convenient for them. they should be held to it.

And GOP Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnel has made it plain that Scalia's replacement will be named by the next president. The senate actually has the means to do that, but we'll see how much spine McConnell has. Needless to say, anyone whom caves on this deserves harsh consequences.

Stay Tuned...

Tyranny In Black Robes - The Scotus Approves Gay Marriage

 

The Supreme Court today ruled to impose same sex marriage on the entire United States. Essentially, like the ObamaCare decision, it bypasses the Tenth Amendment and creates fertile ground for further attacks on Christians, Jews and religious freedom.The Court, once again, is writing legislation from the bench.

The grounds, of course, was the ever elastic 14th Amendment which has become a rich hunting ground for justices seeking 'rights' that were never in the Constitution or intended to be.

The 5-4 decision had Justices Kagen, Sotomayor, Ginsberg, Breyer and Kennedy ruling in favor. Justice Roberts ruled against, but I have it on reasonably good authority that he and Justice Kennedy arranged this beforehand so that Roberts could avoid even more severe fallout in addition to what he's already getting for rewriting ObamaCare.

Most of the press is making this seem like the majority of the states already allow homosexual marriage. The number cited is '37 states.' What they'd rather not reveal is that only three of those states voted to approve same sex marriage. In 8 states, same sex marriage was imposed by the legislature, often in defiance to the wishes of the electorate. And in the remaining 26, it was imposed by court order pending this decision,also known as lawfare.

Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, saying,"The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity. The petitioners in these cases seek to find that liberty by marrying someone of the same sex and having their marriages deemed lawful on the same terms and conditions as marriages between persons of the opposite sex."

'Define and express their identity?' Where is that in the Constitution?

"These considerations lead to the conclusion that the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them. Baker v. Nelson must be and now is overruled, and the State laws challenged by Petitioners in these cases are now held invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite sex couples." [...]

Of course, Justice Kennedy didn't actually elaborate on what 'rights' or 'terms and conditions' gay couples in civil unions are excluded from that married heterosexual couples are not, but then, this was never a civil rights issue even though its advocates invariably used that language and that stance. No CEO has ever been fired for being gay, but they've certainly have been fired merely for airing their their opposition to same sex marriage. Remember Mozilla?

Ironically, Justice Roberts based his dissent on the fact that the Court was essentially legislating from the bench!

"Petitioners make strong arguments rooted in social policy and considerations of fairness. They contend that same-sex couples should be allowed to affirm their love and commitment through marriage, just like opposite-sex couples. That position has undeniable appeal; over the past six years, voters and legislators in eleven States and the District of Columbia have revised their laws to allow marriage between two people of the same sex.

But this Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be…."

"Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition.

"Today, however, the Court takes the extraordinary step of ordering every State to license and recognize same-sex marriage. Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening. "

The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent. The majority expressly disclaims judicial “caution” and omits even a pretense of humility, openly relying on its desire to remake society according to its own “new insight” into the “nature of injustice.” Ante, at 11, 23. As a result, the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?"

Pity he didn't apply that same standard to his ObamaCare decision.

Justice Scalia, of course, went right to the heart of the matter:

"The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance. Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. "

"This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices’ “reasoned judgment.” A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy."

And Justice Alito, in his dissent hits out at what this sordid usurpation will actually be used for:

"Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences.

It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.

Perhaps recognizing how its reasoning may be used, the majority attempts, toward the end of its opinion, to reassure those who oppose same-sex marriage that their rights of conscience will be protected. We will soon see whether this proves to be true. I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools."

Actually,this will encompass more than merely being labeled as 'bigots.' We've already seen how bakers, photographers and florists have been heavily fined, forced out of business and deprived of their livelihood merely for politely telling homosexual couples that their religious beliefs preclude their participating in a same sex marriage ceremony.

Now, thanks to another decision the Court sneaked through that no one's writing about, this is going to be expanded to the point of making it open season on Christians, and in areas that have nothing to do with marriage..especially with the Obama Justice Department itching to slap 'dissidents' around.

How long do you think it's going to be before the same activists who hunted down bakers and photographers knock on the door of a church and demands that their wedding be held there? And sues when the clergyman refuses? Watch how those churches, synagogues and other 'bigoted' religious institutions lose their tax exempt status if they refuse to bend to the New Order.

Another effect, one which I've written about before is something same sex marriage activists are not counting on. What the SCOTUS did today was to forcibly change the very definition of marriage.

You might have noticed, and even been puzzled by the fact that while Islam opposes homosexuality more vociferously than any other religion, Muslim groups, especially Islamists been almost completely silent on the gay marriage question. And with good reason.

There is already a substantial movement to legalize polygamy - or to use the new, fashionable term, 'polyamory'. Today's ruling and what it was based on, 'defining and expressing identity' means that there is absolutely no legal basis to continue to ban it, so polygamy will undoubtedly become legal as soon as the first court challenge hits the docket. So will a lot of other things Americans can't even imagine yet.

Islamist groups like CAIR see this as a spear point for their ultimate aim, to make sharia law recognized and enforceable here in America as it already is in Britain.

This is no fantasy, especially since at least one Supreme Court Justice is already quite sharia friendly.

So it's not just judicial tyranny,  the disregarding of the Constitution and the rule of law we're talking about here. We are talking about radical changes in American life that are going to change what was a free society into something very different. ..something unrecognizable.

An attempt at gun confiscation is the next step in the agenda. Just watch.

Guess What Else The Scotus Approved No One's Talking About?

 

In another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled today on Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project that you can be held liable for housing discrimination whether or not you or anyone in your organization actually intended to discriminate.

Mere thought crimes - or as Justice Kennedy put it, “unconscious prejudice” or “stereotyping” are enough to get you sued in hiring, renting property or numerous other activities if your decision can be found to have 'disparate impact' on the favored protected groups.

This decision was deliberately left quite broad, and it's a wet dream for race pimps or 'community organizers,' not to mention predatory lawyers and the Obama Justice Department.

 

This nonsense has long been a part of employment law, especially in fascist progressive states like California. Asking someone about their criminal record, work history or credit can be seen as 'discriminatory' in the once Golden State, even if this might have a direct bearing on their suitability for a prospective position. Even references are a thing of the past as most employers will only confirm the person once worked there and will not disclose anything else, even if they were discharged for cause.

This is one reason many employers no longer hire employees per se, but independent contractors as needed.

Now this nonsense is going to be extended to the renting of property, extending credit and even local decisions on where to build housing. It can also be used to force property owners to rent to Section 8 tenants whether they want to or not. And again, things like credit, prior rental history or a prior criminal record don't matter provided the prospective tenant is part of one of those 'protected groups.' Somebody who's a registered sex offender wants to rent in your building, even though you have families with young children living there? Provided this person belongs to certain groups, you can be sued for your decision to rent to them or not for any reason based on 'disparate impact.'

In the actual case the SCOTUS ruled on, there's another wonderfully Kafka-esque twist. It involves a decision by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs on the location of low-income housing, and as the dissenting opinion points out, no matter where they decide to locate it, they can be sued on the grounds of 'disparate impact' by one group or another.

This also plays in nicely with the new Obama diktat on forced neighborhood diversity.

And you thought we lived in a free country?

'Constitution? What Constitution?' SCOTUS Saves ObamaCare

 

As I expected, The US Supreme Court today ruled to allow nationwide subsidies on ObamaCare even though they are clearly illegal according to the law as written. The Court's long awaited decision in King v. Burwell was 6-3 for Burwell, ruling that the federal subsidies can still be paid to states that elected not to establish an exchange, a clear violation of the Tenth Amendment as well as the explicit wording of the law.

Voting with Justices Ginsberg, Sontamayor and Breyer were Justices Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, whom wrote the majority opinion. While his opinion is a model of illogic and doublespeak, he at least had the honesty to admit that the Court's majority ignored the actual wording of the law itself as well as the Constitution:

“In this instance,” he wrote, “the context and structure of the act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase.”

This was challenging, he said, because there were “more than a few examples of inartful drafting that “does not reflect the type of care and deliberation that one might expect of such significant legislation.”

Or to translate this, the law itself is so poorly written, nonsensical and contradictory that the Supreme Court, in its wisdom had to actually rewrite it in order to continue to foist it on the American people.

Justice Roberts is frankly admitting that in this case, politics trumps not only what the law says but the Constitution. This is a classic case of what Lawyers refer to as a Stare Decisis 'because we said so' ruling. The actual wording of the law is what Roberts and his cohorts think it should be rather than what it actually is.

Justice Scalia had the right if it, as he frequently does. He read his dissent from the bench, a rare sign of profound disagreement.

In his dissent, Scalia said that we should start calling ObamaCare, “SCOTUSCare.” At the end of his dissent, Scalia wrote, “[t]he somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

Or as Senator Ted Cruz said, if these justices want to write law rather then interpret it, "They should run for Congress."

He's exactly right. This is the second time the Supreme Court has rewritten this law, not to mention the times this president has unilaterally (and illegally, I might add) done so.

 

The current ruling went right to the heart of what ObamaCare is all about - reducing benefits, increasing co-pays and raising premiums sky high on the middle class to subsidize all those new migrants the president is bringing in...with, of course, exemptions for the well connected. That includes every member of the Supreme Court, their employees and their families.

Those of the middle class whom can't pay will be fined by the IRS..and those who can't afford the co-pays after paying the high premiums to avoid the fine will simply go without care.

 

This is so far away from the Constitution our Founders bequeathed us or even the normal standards of jurisprudence as to be ludicrous. When judges write law on the fly to suit themselves and their political agenda, then there is no justice and no law.

There are several things to take away from this that are simply self-evident truths.

The Left now noisily celebrating this should understand that this creates a precedent that can be used against them in the future in ways they won't like. Blatant disregard for justice and the law eventually comes home to roost for those whom champion it.

Second, this ruling doesn't change the basic nature of ObamaCare. It merely preserves it as a poorly written law that makes no fiscal or common sense whatsoever. Half of the exchanges are already bankrupt or headed that way, because most of those who signed up are people who are taking advantage of full subsidies and pay no premiums anyway. There's a limit to how far the fiction will stretch until it cracks.

As Europe is now finding out, you can have an immigration society or a lavish welfare state, just not both.Many of the migrants this president is bringing in are going to turn out to be net tax consumers rather than tax payers by a huge margin. States like California are already seeing this at work. Far from helping to cure the deficit, ObamaCare is now estimated to increase the long-term federal deficit by $6.2 trillion, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

As President Obama continues his amnesty by executive order, expect this figure to increase markedly.

Congress, of course, could still use the power of the purse to defund ObamaCare. Under the present leadership, I rate the chances of that as roughly the shy side of zero.

Why this is true is unimportant right now, although as I've speculated on these pages the unprecedented amount of spying on American citizens, the enormous amount of data collected and President Obama's past use of such weapons and tactics against his political opponents might be an answer. Apparently I'm not the only one thinking that way.

None of this matters, really. We can be outraged, justifiably so, but as I pointed out yesterday, what really is important right now is answering Tolstoy's question: what then must we do?

I've said before that America's destiny is either to reaffirm the republic our forefathers bequeathed to us or to become Rome. The powers that be have apparently decided they're fine with Rome as long as their perks and bottom line are taken care of. Unless we're prepared to go along with that as a population of pauperized serfs supporting their rule and whatever they decree, we are going to have to band together to institute massive political change using what left of our republic and our rights as citizens..before we lose those as well.

Think this over:

What principles do you stand for, and what are you not willing to compromise on?

What are you prepared to do to change things?


Stay tuned.

Burning Down The House Without Thinking

 

The Supreme Court today effectively disenfranchised the overwhelming majority of citizens in 5 states when it refused to hear appeals in cases involving Virginia, Oklahoma, Utah, Wisconsin and Indiana that had defined marriage as between one man and one woman, leaving intact lower-court rulings striking down those laws.

Rather than actually rule on same sex marriage, the Court simply decided not to take a position, just as they cravenly did with California's Proposition 8.The Court did not even  bother explaining why it refused to hear the appeals.

This pretty much means that the remaining 26 states that still prohibit same sex marriage will have their laws struck down one by one as advocates of same sex marriage shop around for a judge likely to rule that the laws limiting marriage to one man and one woman are illegal.

The fact that all of these existing laws were enacted by a majority of the people in these states means nothing.

Is this the Court's new direction, to disenfranchise people based on political correctness? Are we back to the days of Dred Scott?

It's one thing if the people of a given state wish to change the definition of marriage to include gay couples. It's quite  another to ignore their wishes if they choose not to, especially without even the courtesy of hearing arguments and making a ruling.

And make no mistake about it. This is very much about changing the definition of marriage and not a civil rights issue. To prove this to yourself, ask any gay person of your acquaintance who rabidly favors legalized same sex marriage on the grounds of 'equal rights' if they would be satisfied with law that establishes every one of those rights they claim they don't have but refers to civil unions instead of marriages. You'll invariably get an indignant 'no!' in almost all cases.

This was never about equal rights.It was always about redefining marriage.

Is this good for society? We're told that it is, because it supports the doctrine of equal rights for everyone, will extend the stability of marriage to the homosexual community, and won't have any effect on traditional marriage.

Is this true? Let's take a look.

First of all, rather than supporting the doctrine of equal rights, the way this has been done serves to undermine respect for the Constitution, the Supreme Court and the rule of law. What we saw here was the catering to a powerful group politically at the expense of the majority. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel openly voiced this sentiment  when he talked about gays being " the new Jews" in terms of Democrat fund raising.

In California, for instance, we saw the spectacle of Governor Jerry Brown, then the state's Attorney General refusing to enforce state law or defend it in court after politicians in various jurisdictions began illegally issuing same sex marriage licenses.

And it just took one judge, Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker,an open homosexual and gay marriage advocate to rule Proposition 8 'unconstitutional' after the state Supreme Court declared that it was, and send it to the Supreme Court...who refused to rule on the case on the grounds that the people of California 'lacked standing' to argue their case!

 

There are numerous other examples of similar scenarios across the nation. Not only that, but we've seen increased bullying and intimidation of business owners and clergymen who have declined to service homosexual weddings for reasons of faith...or whom even donate to groups whom support traditional marriage.




 The real motivation of many gay activists in insisting on redefining traditional marriage isn’t equality per se, but forcing the normalization and mainstreaming of their lifestyle by whatever means necessary. The effect of this is already evident, as children in many public schools are already being indoctrinated to believe that LGBT behavior is exactly that, regardless of their religious or ethical beliefs or those of their parents, who are paying for the indoctrination.

 So we're talking about some animals simply being more equal than others, ala' George Orwell's Animal Farm.

There's no way to argue that this sort of tyrannical implementing of the redefinition of marriage strengthens our freedoms or respect for law. Instead, what it has taught people is that lawfare and sleazy tactics matter more than the law, and that is going to set a horrendous precedent.

But will gay marriage affect traditional marriage? Of course it will. And the reasons may surprise you.

The first effect of diluting marriage - for that is exactly what 'expanding' the definition of marriage amounts to - will be to encourage all sorts of variations to dilute it even further. Same sex marriage is certain to lead to a slippery slope of legalized polygamy and mainstreaming of the euphemism favored by a number of well established, mainstream polygamy advocates here in the US, "polyamory" (group marriage).

University of North Carolina Professor Mim Chapman's "What Does Polyamory Look Like" is regarded as one of the 'bibles' of the movement, along with Deborah Anapol's "Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits". And the movement already has a flagship magazine in Loving More...which is actually supported by the taxpayers, believe it or not.

Once you do a little research, you find out that a lot of the advocates for diluting traditional marriage tend to be..wait for it..lawyers, especially family law lawyers,including the late Paula Ettelbrick who taught law at the University of Michigan, New York University, Barnard, and Columbia, and was the executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission as well as New York City's Stonewall Community Foundation; Emory University law professor Martha Fineman, who is also an affilited scholar with the ultra-Left Center For American Progress; University of Maryland Carole Hanan Sibel; Research Professor of Law Martha Ertman; Mary Anne Case, Arnold I. Shure Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School; Judith Stacey, the Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and Sociology at NYU and the author of "Unhitched" essentially an advocacy book for 'non-traditional marriage' and David Chambers, a professor of law at the University of Michigan.

And surprise! A number of these academics actually champion the radical remaking and even the dissolution of traditional marriage as an institution in favor of a series of 'contractual' relationships, and are quite open about championing same sex marriage as a entryway towards the abolishing of traditional marriage as we now know it.

 

It‘s obvious why a number of the most outspoken advocates of same sex marriage are lawyers. After all, they're the ones who will be pocketing handsome fees for a whole new round of divorces, custody battles and the drawing and redrawing of marital 'contracts' once same sex marriage, polygamy and polyamory become the law of the land.


Another group that has been virtually silent about homosexual marriage even though many of them are violently opposed to it are Islamist organizations like CAIR, The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) And The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC). They see this as a spear point for legalizing the polygamy Islam allows as well as other aspects of sharia law. They also see it as a selling point to proselytize for Islam to people whom may not be  particularly affiliated religiously, but retain traditional attitudes towards homosexuality.

 Like it or not, traditional monogamous marriage between one man and one woman is one of the foundations of western society, as well as the preferred environment for raising children as all serious research on the subject shows. That's why it's lasted as long as it has. Diluting marriage and diminishing  that foundation  will almost certainly  lead to a number of bad effects on our society, most of which can already be seen in Europe.

  Much of Europe has had same sex marriage for a while now, and de facto legal polygamy is already a fact there because of the huge influx of Muslim immigrants. Parts of Europe even have a problem with bestiality in the form of animal prostitution that they're unable to eliminate because of their existing laws on sex and marriage. And why not? How can one discriminate legally between 'lifestyle choices'?

The clear trend there since same sex marriage became legal is for less marriage, drastically lower birthrates, and a vastly greater amount of out of wedlock births. In order to make a society like that work even slightly, you need a vast and well-funded welfare state. Again looking at Europe as an example, not only doesn't such a state work if you have massive immigration, but it freezes social and financial mobility and eventually topples under its own weight into bankruptcy once you run out of other people's money to spend.While redefining marriage isn't the only thing shoving us in that direction, it's going to be an important part of it.

What consenting adults do sexually in the privacy of their own homes is of no interest to me. But  it's pretty clear to me that redefining marriage like this, especially given the way it's being done  is going to have big picture consequences for Western society that will only become apparent as time passes.If you doubt this, do a little research yourself about what happened to other societies that legalized same sex marriage and normalized such relationships.

We're burning down our house it took centuries to build..without thinking.

A Sheep In Wolf's Clothing: The Supreme Court Runs And Hides

 

The Roberts Supreme Court issued two decisions today that are essentially sheep in wolf's clothing. That is, they are intended to look like originalist decisions that support the Constitution, but they are so hedged and nuanced as to be almost meaningless.

One of the cases, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby is fairly well known. The issue here was whether the Obama Administration could require a corporation or other institution ( such as a Catholic University) to include abortificants and other contraceptive items required by ObamaCare in violation of its religious principles.

The other was Harris v. Quinn, where the matter in question was whether home health care workers, many of whom take care of disabled relatives are required to kick in an 'agency fee' for negotiating pay and benefits to public employee unions even if the workers involved are not members of the union and do not want to join or support the union.

Let's look at Harris vs. Quinn first, which was PR'ed as a 'death blow' to public employee unions. Nothing could be further from the truth. What the Court did here was to rule so narrowly that it avoided the essential issue.

Pamela Harris gets paid to take care of her developmentally disabled son in Illinois, which made a deal with the SEIU as the union of choice to collect those 'fees'. She challenged the state's right to designate a union of public employees as their sole representative.

In a 1977 ruling, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the Court ruled that public employee Unions could collect such fees but not use them for political activities, although pro-labor politicians made sure that there was little or no oversight to give it any teeth.

The argument for Ms. Harris was a simple First Amendment one - whether the compulsory fees violated her right of free speech, since the State of Illinois was in essence forcing her to support an organization, the SEIU, whose politics she disagreed with.

That was the essential issue, and anyone who understands the Constitution knows that compelling someone to support politics they disagree with - say, spending $40 million dollars to get Barack Obama elected president-as a condition of employment violates their First Amendment rights.

Yet so ingrained is the Ponzi scheme by which the Democratic party funds itself through forced contributions from public employee union paychecks paid for by the public and then 'negotiates' pay and benefits with the very people that put them in office that she actually lost in a couple of th elower courts and had to appeal.

 

The Court sidestepped that by ruling that only home care workers were exempted and noting in the decision that prior rulings legalizing this enforced levy from workers and from taxpayers could continue. The obvious question no one's asking is that if Ms. Harris' rights were deemed violated, aren't the rights of a janitor or a clerk's who likewise has to kick in to support the union's political agenda? This was a chance for a sweeping ruling that would have defended the First Amendment the Court deliberately avoided. Since it was 5-4, I suspect Chief Justice John Robert's hand in this.

At best, this may be a precedent to take down public employee unions like the SEIU and AFSCME and end their racket at a later date.

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby was an even bigger example of deliberately avoiding the defense of a clear constitutional principle.

The Court never even bothered to go near the main argument, the fact that by requiring Hobby Lobby to provide abortificants and contraceptives as part of the ObamaCare mandate the free practice clause of the First Amendment was being urinated on. Instead, they again narrowed down their ruling to the point that it was meaningless. First, they limited the things Hobby Lobby need not pay for to three specific abortificants, most notably the morning after pill. Upon ''certifying that it opposes contraceptive coverage', the insurance company involved is required to provide these items 'for free', which of course means that Hobby Lobby will still be paying for them because they will be figured into the premium the insurance company charges them!

What we're talking about is an average cost for these items of around $9 a month over the counter -  without any insurance offset.

What everyone seems to want to avoid is that contraception, like sex itself,  is a choice. In fact, that's really what both these decisions were about. Who chooses? Is it government or the individual? And does the government have the right to force such basic choices on people? Who you have to pay off as a condition of employment? What you have to provide as an employer beyond the obvious realms of a safe working environment and an agreed upon rate of pay no matter what your principles? Would the Court have ruled, for instance, that Muslims are to be required to handle pork and alcohol if that's part of their job requirement? Isn't that the same principle, the free practice of religion guaranteed in the First Amendment? Obviously not anymore.  Welcome to Obama's America.

 

The Roberts Court is going to be remembered for its cowardice and willingness to punt rather than the exercise of what is supposedly its job, to interpret and rule on the Constitution.

And the fact that this was yet another 5-4 decision doesn't bode well for our liberties.Not at all.

Unanimous! Supremes Rules Obama's Recess Appointments Unconstitutional

I guess he's not a king after all. At least not yet.

In a unanimous 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning et al that President Obama's appointments to the National Labor Relations Board in 2012 without Senate confirmation were illegal. The president's excuse at the time was that the Senate was 'in recess' when it actually wasn't, but he simply pushed the appointments through anyway.

The senate sued, and today's ruling was the result.

In a real slap in the face, the majority opinion was written by the most left-leaning justice on the Court, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. A concurring opinion written by Antonin Scalia was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

"The Recess Appointments Clause empowers the President to fill existing vacancy during any recess—intra-session or inter-session—of sufficient length. A Senate recess that is so short that it does not require the consent of the House under that Clause is not long enough to trigger the President's recess-appointment power."

Justice Stephen Breyer said in his majority opinion that a congressional break has to last at least 10 days to be considered a recess under the Constitution.

Apparently even the left-leaning justices on the court are worried about this president's lawless behavior and disregard for the Constitution he swore to uphold.

Supreme Court Upholds Digital Privacy In Major Decision

In a far reaching decision that establishes a major precedent for digital privacy, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that warrantless searches of cell phones are unconstitutional except in very narrowly defined circumstances for “exigencies” that arise, such as major security threats.

The case involved was Riley v. California, a case the Court chose out of a group of ten cases involving warrantless searches of cell phones after an arrest.

 

In a 1973 decision, United States v. Robinson, the Court had ruled that the police can conduct a complete search of an arrestee's person, but they recognized in today's decision that a cell phone represents different territory, as Chief Justice John Roberts explained:

Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans “the privacies of life,” Boyd, supra, at 630. The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple— get a warrant.

While Robinson’s categorical rule strikes the appropriate balance in the context of physical objects, neither of its rationales has much force with respect to digital content on cell phones. On the government interest side, Robinson concluded that the two risks identified in Chimel—harm to officers and destruction of evidence—are present in all custodial arrests. There are no comparable risks when the search is of digital data. In addition, Robinson regarded any privacy interests retained by an individual after arrest as significantly diminished by the fact of the arrest itself. Cell phones, however, place vast quantities of personal information literally in the hands of individuals. A search of the information on a cell phone bears little resemblance to the type of brief physical search considered in Robinson.

Justice Roberts wrote that a cell phone could lay bare someone’s entire personal history, from their medical records to their “specific movements down to the minute” and noted that there was a huge difference between asking someone to turn out his pockets versus “ransacking his house for everything which may incriminate him.”

The storage capacity of cell phones has several interrelated consequences for privacy. First, a cell phone collects in one place many distinct types of information—an address, a note, a prescription, a bank statement, a video—that reveal much more in combination than any isolated record. Second, a cell phone’s capacity allows even just one type of information to convey far more than previously possible. The sum of an individual’s private life can be reconstructed through a thousand photographs labeled with dates, locations, and descriptions; the same cannot be said of a photograph or two of loved ones tucked into a wallet. Third, the data on a phone can date back to the purchase of the phone, or even earlier. A person might carry in his pocket a slip of paper reminding him to call Mr. Jones; he would not carry a record of all his communications with Mr. Jones for the past several months, as would routinely be kept on a phone.


This is a huge win for the Fourth Amendment and protection against unusual searches and seizures, and the first victory for an individuals right of privacy in some time.

Tyranny: Supremes Won't Hear Appeal from Photographer Fined For Refusing to Shoot Gay Wedding

 

The U.S. Supreme Court today refused to hear an appeal from Elane Photography, a Christian-owned New Mexico business who was fined for turning down business that involved photographing gay marriages on religious grounds.

The New Mexico State Supreme Court had ruled against Elane Photography in 2013, ruling she discriminated against a gay couple because she refused to shoot their same-sex ceremony. Since the Supreme Court has clearly decided to ignore Elane's First Amendment rights, refusing even to hear the case, their cowardice means that this tyrannical ruling will stand as a precedent.

The implications are monstrous. What's next...will clergymen be forced to officiate over homosexual weddings and hold them in their mosques, synagogues, churches and temples regardless of their beliefs? Do private businesses no longer have the right to refuse  services to anyone for any reason?

We apparently are no longer a nation of laws anymore. Or a nation of G-d-given freedoms.

Supreme Court Upholds Texas Abortion Law

The Supreme Court of the United States today upheld the abortion laws passed by the State of Texas by a 5-4 vote.The majority refused to set aside a federal appeals court’s order permitting the law to take effect on October 31.

The law, opposed by Planned Parenthood and of course a number of Democrats was voted into law by a two thirds majority by the legislature in Texas after a number of Dr. Gosnell type abortion 'clinics' surfaced in the state. Th new law, in an effort to stop these chamber of horror sites from operating requires that any doctor in the state who is going to perform an abortion have professional privileges to admit patients to a hospital within thirty miles of the site where the abortion will take place.

A federal judge in Austin, District Judge Lee Yeakel, (a Bush appointee, so this was hardly partisan politics at work) had ruled last month that this requirement was unconstitutional, saying that it put a “substantial obstacle” in the path of women in Texas to terminate a pregnancy. The Fifth Circuit overturned that order, and cleared the way for the law to become effective while the Fifth Circuit is reviewing the constitutionality of the law.

Needless to say, Planned Parenthood is upset. They and and several other Texas abortion clinics said in their lawsuit to stop the measure that it would force more than a third of clinics in the state to stop providing abortions...and that meant that there was a lot of Federal money st stake for them.

I fail to see how merely requiring an abortionist to have admitting privileges in a hospital (which means he or she has gone through a certain amount of vetting) restricts anyone from having an abortion. And a clinic should have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles in case something goes wrong.

Not only that, but as Justice Scalia argued successfully, this is a huge assault on federalism.

Odd how the Left absolutely salivates at the idea of restrictions and regulations on everything and anything except to right to kill babies on demand.

This isn't over yet, but it's a good precedent, and will effect laws in Tennessee and Utah, the other states enforcing their laws on admitting privileges as well as similar laws under temporary court injunctions in Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, North Dakota and Wisconsin.

Of course, there's always Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a bid to ban abortions performed after 20 weeks unless a woman's life was at stake was defeated 45% to 55% after a well financed campaign by Planned Parenthood and others.

By 20 weeks ( 5 months) a baby has a fully developed nervous system and can feel the excruciating pain that results from having the skull punctured by surgical scissors and the brains vacuumed out to collapse the head as the baby is ripped from the womb. That's the usual method by which late term abortions are performed.

Texas: SCOTUS Voting Rights Decision Clears The Way For Implementing Voter ID Law

 

As you might know, the Supreme Court recently struck down  Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act that dated from 1965, almost half a century ago. The section that they removed dealt with the necessity of sovereign states in the South  needing to seek federal approval before making any changes to their voting laws.

Aside from being unconstitutional, these provision were antiquated a long time ago. But they were still used as a political tool by the Democrats until now, a massive irony considering who actually was the party of Jim Crow.

One thing the new decision did was to allow Texas to implement a law requiring voter IDs that the state legislature passed overwhelmingly in 2011/. The law was identical to one implemented in Indiana, but Texas was prevented from implementing their law by President Obama's justice department. So the courts did their work and that obstacle to equality under th elaw has now been removed.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had this to say:

“This is a huge win for the Constitution and for equality in this country,” Abbott said. “Before today, different states were treated differently under the Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is the only law that was used to impose disparate or different kind of treatment. Specifically, Texas was called out and treated differently than other states.”

Abbott noted that Indiana approved a voter ID law a few years ago and had that law upheld by the Supreme Court. But when Texas passed a nearly identical law in 2011, the Obama administration used the Voting Rights Act to block it.

“That just showed that they were using the Voting Rights Act law to treat Texas different from Indiana, and that was part of the backdrop behind today’s decision,” Abbott said. The court ruled today that that law was being used “unfairly, illegally, inappropriately, therefore it was unconstitutional,” Abbott said.

Now that this tool for voter fraud has been rendered inoperable, we may see far different results in Texas elections. Unfortunately too late fop rth e2012 elections, but still welcome.

A Few Words On The DOMA And Prop 8 Supreme Court Decisions

Today the Supreme Court issued two rulings on gay marriage with interesting implications.

In the first one, by a 5-4 ruling the Court struck down certain provisions of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)signed into law by President Clinton.

In Windsor v. United States, it declared provisions of the law invalid that prohibit homosexual couples from sharing government health care benefits, filing taxes jointly, and similar items under the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution.

Justice Kennedy was the swing vote.

You'll note two things..first, that this simple and essentially fair fix could have been done in Congress long ago with reference to civil unions without even touching the definition of marriage, as it essentially amends the law without rescinding it.

And second, that is does not make gay marriage 'legal' except in those states that want to make it so. Although it does signal (but not implicitly state) that such unions should be recognized nationwide.What the Court essentially did was to punt, just as they did in the other ruling on this subject they made, which we'll discuss shortly.

DOMA was always a queer piece of law (no pun intended). Like Don't Ask Don't Tell, it was a compromise based on the assurances of gay activists and their congressional supporters that they would never seek to overturn it judicially - which of course is exactly what they did afterwards. And in fact it was mostly same sex marriage advocates in congress who mostly kept DOMA from being amended, precisely because they were after the bigger goal of redefining marriage itself.

To prove this to yourself, ask any gay person of your acquaintance who rabidly favors legalized same sex marriage on the grounds of 'equal rights' if they would be satisfied with law that establishes every one of those rights they claim they want  but legally refers to civil unions instead of marriages. You'll invariably get an indignant 'no!' in almost all cases.

This was never about equal rights.It was always about redefining marriage. And once you do that, literally anything can become a marriage.

The second Supreme Court decision rendered today concerned California's Proposition 8, voted for by almost a two to one majority in that state to change California's constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

At the time, California had legalized civil unions which even the state's own Supreme Court justices admitted gave same sex couples in a civil union the exact same rights as a heterosexual married couple. But a ruling by openly gay Judge Vernon Walker that the new law was unconstitutional sent Proposition 8 on the road to the Supreme Court.

What the SCOTUS did was simply to emphasize their earlier decision on DOMA by refusing to hear the case based on - wait for it - a lack of standing. Here we have the votes of an entire state dismissed, as the case goes back to the lower court whom will likewise do the same. So California will have gay marriage regardless of what the residents want, and Governor Jerry Brown (who as attorney general made a unilateral decision to ignore his oath of office and not defend the new law in court) has ordered the state to resume issuing licenses for same sex marriages within 30 days.

The rationale for this is particularly revealing. Here's Chief Justice Roberts in his majority opinion explaining the decision to dismiss the case:

For there to be such a case or controversy, it is not enough that the party invoking the power of the court have a keen interest in the issue. That party must also have "standing," which requires, among other things, that it have suffered a concrete and particularized injury. Because we find that petitioners do not have standing, we have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the Ninth Circuit.

Once Proposition 8, which limited marriage in California to heterosexual couples, was approved by the voters, the measure became "a duly enacted constitutional amendment or statute." Petitioners have no role—special or otherwise—in the enforcement of Proposition 8. They therefore have no "personal stake" in defending its enforcement that is distinguishable from the general interest of every citizen of California.

No standing? What exactly are the people of California supposed to do if their own elected officials pick and choose which laws they like and which ones they will enforce and defend in court? Is that what we've come to?

In his dissent, Justice Kennedy at least tried to be honest about the matter, arguing that the SCOTUS should have made a ruling in this case:

The Court today unsettles its longtime understanding of the basis for jurisdiction in representative-party litigation, leaving the law unclear and the District Court's judgment, and its accompanying statewide injunction, effectively immune from appellate review.

Kennedy also smacked state officials for opposing Prop 8 in the manner they did as another reason the SCOTUS should have taken this on:

In the end, what the Court fails to grasp or accept is the basic premise of the initiative process. And it is this. The essence of democracy is that the right to make law rests in the people and flows to the government, not the other way around. Freedom resides first in the people without need of a grant from government. The California initiative process embodies these principles and has done so for over a century.


Eh, but not in California so much any more. Or a lot of other places either, where same sex marriage was pushed through without bothering to actually consult the voters. So in today's decisions, the SCOTUS is simply saying to the activists on both sides that if you can get a state to allow same sex marriage or to disallow it by any means necessary, so be it.

Right now, same sex marriage is legal in 15 states. The only one where voters actually had a say in the matter and voted for it are Maine, Maryland, and Washington. In most of the others, including California, the voters feelings on the matter were studiously ignored.

That's not how a democratic republic operates, or at least that used to be the case.

More Evidence Justice Roberts Switched His Vote On ObamaCare Under Pressure

I speculated before on these pages that Chief Justice John Roberts likely changed his vote on ObamaCare at the last minute under pressure. Apparently,according to Jan Crawford reporting on CBS Face the Nation that's exactly how it went down:

I am told by two sources with specific knowledge of the court’s deliberations that Roberts initially sided with the conservatives in this case and was prepared to strike down the heart of this law, the so-called individual mandate, of course, that requires all Americans to buy insurance or pay a penalty. but Roberts, I’m told by my sources, changed his views deciding to instead join with the liberals.

He withstood–I’m told by my sources–a month-long desperate campaign by the conservative justices to bring him back to the fold and that campaign was led, ironically, by Justice Anthony Kennedy and why that’s ironic is because it was Justice Kennedy that conservatives feared would be the one most effort, of course, was unsuccessful, Roberts didn’t budge, the conservatives wrote that astonishing joint dissent united in opposition and Roberts wrote the majority opinion with the four liberals to uphold the President’s signature achievement.

Over the next six weeks, as Roberts began to craft the decision striking down the mandate, the external pressure began to grow. Roberts almost certainly was aware of it.

Some of the conservatives, such as Justice Clarence Thomas, deliberately avoid news articles on the Court when issues are pending (and avoid some publications altogether, such as The New York Times). They’ve explained that they don’t want to be influenced by outside opinion or feel pressure from outlets that are perceived as liberal.

But Roberts pays attention to media coverage. As Chief Justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the Court, and he also is sensitive to how the Court is perceived by the public.

There were countless news articles in May warning of damage to the Court – and to Roberts’ reputation – if the Court were to strike down the mandate. Leading politicians, including the President himself, had expressed confidence the mandate would be upheld.

Some even suggested that if Roberts struck down the mandate, it would prove he had been deceitful during his confirmation hearings, when he explained a philosophy of judicial restraint.

It was around this time that it also became clear to the conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, “wobbly,” the sources said.

More from CBS News:

Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

"He was relentless," one source said of Kennedy's efforts. "He was very engaged in this."

But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, "You're on your own."

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.

Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. They deliberately ignored Roberts' decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.

The inner-workings of the Supreme Court are almost impossible to penetrate. The Court's private conferences, when the justices discuss cases and cast their initial votes, include only the nine members - no law clerks or secretaries are permitted. The justices are notoriously close-lipped, and their law clerks must agree to keep matters completely confidential.

But in this closely-watched case, word of Roberts' unusual shift has spread widely within the Court, and is known among law clerks, chambers' aides and secretaries. It also has stirred the ire of the conservative justices, who believed Roberts was standing with them. {....}

The majority decisions were due on June 1, and the dissenters set about writing a response, due on June 15. The sources say they divided up parts of the opinion, with Kennedy and Scalia doing the bulk of the writing.

The language in the dissent was sweeping, arguing the Court was overreaching in the name of restraint and ignoring key structural protections in the Constitution. There are clear elements of Scalia - and then, there is Justice Kennedy.

"The fragmentation of power produced by the structure of our government is central to liberty, and when we destroy it, we place liberty in peril," the dissent said. "Today's decision should have vindicated, should have taught, this truth; instead our judgment today has disregarded it."

If Chief Justice Roberts deliberately changed his vote in response to media and political pressure that goes pretty much over the limits for any judge in any situation. It would certainly explain why the four justices in the minority,especially Scalia and Kennedy were so visibly enraged over this, an almost unprecedented display in the Court's normally collegial atmosphere.

There's a precedent for this kind of cravenness in history. After the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes struck down a number of the New Deal's more questionable programs as unconstitutional, President Franklin D. Roosevelt threatened the High Court directly, referring to them as 'nine old men' who were standing in the way of progress. After winning a a huge landslide in the 1936 elections, Roosevelt initiated a scheme he was going to run through a Democrat-dominated Congress to change the number of Supreme Court Justices to 15 - which he, Roosevelt would appoint.

In response,Hughes and Justice Owen J. Roberts began to switch their positions. They would vote to uphold much of the rest of the New Deal programs, the beginning of America as welfare state.

The ludicrous part is that Hughes and Roberts' cave in at the expense of the Constitution was almost certainly unnecessary. Roosevelt's court packing scheme was unpopular even in the 1936 Congress and would likely not have passed, and especially not after the 1938 midterms, which saw a different political mix in congress.

If Chief Justice John Roberts changed his vote to gut the Constitution's limits on Federal power just to deflect criticism from himself and the Court and get some peace and quiet during a heated presidential election year, he made a huge error, and one that will sully his personal reputation for some time.

This one may go down in the history of American jurisprudence with the Dredd Scott decision.

ObamaCare Stands, 5-4

The Supreme Court ruled today that ObamaCare as it now stands is Constitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts provided the swing vote, with Justices Alito, Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia dissenting.

Oddly enough, Justice Roberts' decision was based on the notion that the individual mandate, the heart of the bill is a tax and therefore falls under Congress's power to levy such taxes. That's the exact opposite of what the Obama Administration said in it's oral arguments, and what the president himself said earlier.

“Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness,” Roberts said in his opinion.

The court also disputed the law’s expansion of Medicaid, but agreed to allow it as long as the federal government does not threaten to withhold states’ entire Medicaid allotment if they don’t take part in the law’s expansion.

“The act before us here exceeds federal power both in mandating the purchase of health insurance and in denying non-consenting states all Medicaid funding,” the dissenters said in a joint statement.

Apparently, there's nothing government cannot do, no commerce or activity public or private they cannot compel, according to Justice Roberts and the Court's majority.If this stands, we can mark this as the end of America as a free country.

My prediction from yesterday on the reaction of the dinosaur media and the left is,of course already taking place.

DNC Director Patrick Gaspard, via Twitter: "It's constitutional, bitches."

The response to Sarah Palin's tweet, "Obama lied, Freedom died" was even classier ( warning, language).

MSNBC referred to it as 'a dramatic victory for the president.'

There is a silver lining to all this.

The Obama Administration now has a ruling, one that redefines ObamaCare as the largest tax increase in history. . Governor Mitt Romney, the Tea Party and Americans who still believe in freedom now have a cause and a major campaign issue to rally around, and this is going to galvanize them like nothing else could. In fact, given the unpopularity of this law, it might just have ensured Mitt Romney's election, along with a conservative majority in Congress.

Ligean dó gáire a Bhuaigh...'Let him laugh who wins.'

What's Really Going To Happen On ObamaCare Tomorrow

I should be more jaded by now, but I have to admit to being amused by the dinosaur media's coverage of the day before the big day, as the usual suspects try to read the tea leaves and spin this with abandon.

Just look at these sample headlines:

From CNN:Supreme Court decision on polarizing health care law looms

Isn't it amusing that no one in the dinosaur media described the law as 'polarizing' when it was literally shoved through Congress? And given the polls that show most Americans view ObamaCare about the same way they view black widow spiders or burst pipes, wouldn't it be more accurate to describe the law as 'unpopular'?

From The Politico's always predictable Jake Sherman: GOP Plan For 'ObamaCare' Nothing

Yes, those Evil Republicans are going to let even some of the more popular parts of ObamaCare just die, chuckling at the whimpering of sick little children.

Ditto from Greg Sargeant, the go to guy whenever the Soros media wants its talking points aired:One more time: The GOP wouldn’t replace Obamacare with anything

From The Washington Post: On health care, the public doesn’t like its options

It's all the fault of our polarized politics. If only there were more 'moderate' Republicans who would reliably do whatever Democrats want!

And plenty more, ad absurdum.

I wouldn't presume to predict what the Supreme Court will actually do, although I will say that if they strike down the individual mandate,(InTrade has it as a 73% chance) I'd guess the rest of ObamaCare will likely go with it because (A) there's no mechanism to fund the monstrosity otherwise and (b) none of the justices really wanted to go through a 2700 page bill to determine what parts might be salvageable, especially with no funding mechanism attached.

However, I can accurately predict exactly what will happen after the decision.

If the Court only strikes down the individual mandate, expect the media to spin it as a victory for Obama because 'most of the law survived intact'. President Obama will campaign against 'those white guys and that Uncle Tom who are trying to move America backwards and take away your healthcare' and tell his fans that he needs a second term to fix healthcare and give it back to them.

If the Court strikes down the entire bill, look for an angst ridden meltdown and an outcry of mind bending rage from the dinosaur media and their Leftist pundits. The usual tropes of class warfare, evil Republicans and calls to reform the Supreme Court to kick justices off the bench after a set term as opposed to life time appointments will be heard. The press will spin it as a victory for Obama because the ruling has 'energized Democrats' and 'given President Obama his groove back' with a brand new campaign issue to run on...whether that's actually true or not.

If the Court upholds ObamaCare, look for the kind of chest pounding triumphalism and mockery normally emanating from ten-year-olds, coming from the usual suspects. The Supreme Court will be lionized in the dinosaur media as 'guardians of the people's rights' and an institution that shouldn't be tampered with in any way. Any justices that voted to strike down ObamaCare, no matter how reasoned their demeanor and arguments will be described as 'angry', 'out of touch', 'rigid', and 'ultraconservative'.

The press will spin it as a victory for Obama, who has 'now seen his signature achievement validated' and now has 'gotten his groove back' in his re-election campaign because of this 'historic win.'

Republicans will be described as 'dispirited', 'angry' and 'frustrated'. In reality,after a day or so of reflection, the Court upholding ObamaCare would almost certainly galvanize the American people,particularly the Tea Party, to organize and work to take back Congress and the White House as ObamaCare's repeal becomes an even bigger issue than it was before.

Unlike a lot of what you're reading or hearing, you can definitely count on my predictions coming true.

Oh, yes..for those of you whom want to read a decent, balanced analysis of how the whole thing might play out, I recommend Sean Trende's piece here.

Obama Signals Repeal Of ObamaCare, Says He'll Campaign Against The Supreme Court

Ah, yes...it begins.

Barack Obama suggested that any decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn his landmark healthcare law would send the country “backwards” and that Americans did not want to “re-fight” the battle over healthcare.

It was the first sign that beyond the White House’s staunch defence of the Affordable Care Act Mr Obama is prepared to use the law as a rallying cry on the campaign trail. It is a risky strategy: about half the country remains opposed to the legislation, although most voters like the consumer protections that are guaranteed under the law.

...

In his comments, Mr Obama did not make any explicit references to the court, although he has said in the past that it would be “unprecedented” for the ACA to be overturned.

“The American people fight for what’s right. And the American people understand that we’re not going to make progress by going backwards. We need to go forward,” he said.

Now, the actual decision was made probably a month ago, so the president is not warning and threatening the Court as he did before. No, he's opening up a new campaign theme.

Which may mean that he's already been tipped off on how the Court is going to rule.

If he has, I suspect a roly poly little rat named Kagan.

Citizen's United Ruling Upheld By The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today reaffirmed its earlier Citizen's United ruling in a 5-4 vote reversing a Montana court ruling.

In American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, the Montana State Supreme Court had ruled that corporations were prohibited from contributing to political campaigns, a direct challenge to the Citizen's United ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court quite properly overturned the Montana Court's decision, ruling that Citizen's United applies to the individual states as well as the nation.

It's interesting to see the left moan about this.

Earlier, I wrote about the partial overturning of SB 1070, the Arizona immigration law on the grounds that parts of it ursurped federal powers. Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Ginsberg were happy to jump on that particular trolley and join the majority.

Here, we have a similar case of of a state attempting to flout U.S. law and ursurp federal jurisdiction and wouldn't you know it, they all vote to allow it!

Fortunately, they were overruled by the majority.

Aside from the Citizen's United decision being a clear stand for First Amendment Rights, striking it down would also violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Labor unions and advocacy groups like NARAL,Planned Parenthood and Code Pink are allowed to make campaign contributions based on freedom of speech. So should corporations.

Citizen's United essentially levels the playing field, which is exactly why the left hates it so much.

SB 1070: Scotus Upholds Part Of Arizona Law, Strikes Down Other Parts

The Supreme Court ruled today on Arizona's SB1070, upholding a key part of the law but striking down others as an intrusion on federal powers.

The part of the law requiring suspected illegal aliens to provide law officers with proof of status - the so-called 'show me your papers' clause - was upheld by the Court as constitutional and a legitimate exercise of a state's powers to enforce the law.

The Court struck down the provisions making it a crime for illegal aliens without work permits to seek employment, to fail to carry registration documents, and to allow the arrest of anyone believed to be an illegal alien and subject to deportation.

The decision was something of a mixed bag. Five justices - Justice Anthony Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor - voted to strike down three provisions. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas wanted to allow the entire law to stand while Justice Samuel Alito would have struck down one unnamed provision and kept the rest of the law intact. Justice Kagan was forced to recuse herself.

Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion:

"Arizona may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process continues, but the state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law."

That's really the crux of it. Asking someone to show papers or ID is an exercise in law enforcement that's in sync with federal law. The three provisions the Court struck down are expansions of it.

Justice Scalia, with his characteristic wit made the case in his dissent for Arizona's law on the basis of state sovereignty, writing, "If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign state."

So in the end, the ruling on SB1070 merely kicks the can down the road.

The real problem is that for political reasons the United States has been failing to enforce it's immigration laws for some time on a selective basis when it comes to primarily Latino aliens coming through our southern border. It is a federal problem that will take federal legislation to solve. Even if illegal alien migration wasn't a key part of wrecking the budget of several U.S. States, it simply isn't viable from a security standpoint in a post 9/11 world.

Or to take Justice Scalia's point to it's logical conclusion, if the United States can't secure it's territory, there's no reason to refer to it as a sovereign state.

SCOTUS Rules 7-2 Unions Must Allow Opt Out On Fees For Political Assessments

Public employee unions took another significant hit today as the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that unions must give workers a chance to opt out of unexpected fee increases or special assessments that all workers are required to pay in closed-shop situations.

This particular case involved the SEIU shaking down its California public sector members for a $12 million 'special assessment' the union wanted. for political campaigning. A number of employees at SEIU Local 1000 decided to object to the fee, which was assessed without any notice. They sued, which given the SEIU's proclivities took a certain amount of courage.

California's notorious 9th Circuit sided with the union, unsurprisingly. But the Supreme Court, quite rightly, reversed the appellate court in a 7-2 decision written by Justice Alito.

"When a public-sector union imposes a special assessment or dues increase, the union must provide a fresh ... notice and may not exact any funds from nonmembers without their affirmative consent," Alito said.

This is huge, because the decision directly impacts the right of public employee unions to collect for political activities without giving members an opt out. Alito's majority decision clearly broadens this to include not only fees levied without notice but any special assessments.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the judgment and voted with the majority, but were careful to write an opinion of their own, disagreeing that the First Amendment requires an opt-in system for other circumstances like "the levying of a special assessment or dues increase" but were very clear that public employee unions in closed shops couldn't pick their members pockets for political campaigning:

"When a public-sector union imposes a special assessment intended to fund solely political lobbying efforts, the First Amendment requires that the union provide non-members an opportunity to opt out of the contribution of funds."

The dissenters? Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan of course. But that's to be expected. Breyer is the most far left of all the justices, with the possible exception of Kagen. And Kagen, an academic who has never worked as a judge or as a lawyer other than her brief stint as President Obama's solicitor general has no discernible qualifications for the court except her political views and her status as a Friend Of Barack. She's going to be a poison pill in the Supreme Court for quite some time, unfortunately.