Pepper sprayed for public safety.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

I didn't see Thomas' poke, what was it?

They talk too much and would already know the answers to most of their questions if they'd read the briefs.

A particular shot at Scalia given his admission that he doesn't read bills in front of him.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

He said it would be unprecedented for the court to strike down a major program as outside the commerce clause powers. There's nothing silly about that.

Isn't Scalia's position on the commerce clause that it permits things he likes but not things he doesn't? I thought that was pretty clear at this point.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

So your take is that the supreme court, which seems poised to take a major shot at Obama's signature policy, is beneath him and best ignored? Interesting.

So you don't go in for that co-equal bit?

He can't just sit back and have the story be that Obamacare is unconstitutional. He could have been more eloquent in making the point that a 5-4 decision striking it down would be unprecedented and potentially politically motivated, but the point needed to be made and made now.

As for Hank's interest in how it influences the 9, I don't think it does.

the supreme court will often vote as 1 to preserve its apparent authority. Example: when it ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes (thus letting Hillary and the other unshaven hounds to kill what had been one of our best presidencies) it voted 8-0. There is no way such a close question wasn't more divided, but the Justices knew that voting as one was inmportant. Same thing happened in Brown v. Board.

what is different now is that liberal justices don't give two fucks about the country. See bush v. Gore. HCR should die 9-0. It won't because of politics, but not from the conservsative side.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

the supreme court will often vote as 1 to preserve its apparent authority. Example: when it ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes (thus letting Hillary and the other unshaven hounds to kill what had been one of our best presidencies) it voted 8-0. There is no way such a close question wasn't more divided, but the Justices knew that voting as one was inmportant. Same thing happened in Brown v. Board.

what is different now is that liberal justices don't give two fucks about the country. See bush v. Gore. HCR should die 9-0. It won't because of politics, but not from the conservsative side.

Checked your tail light recently?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

the supreme court will often vote as 1 to preserve its apparent authority. Example: when it ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes (thus letting Hillary and the other unshaven hounds to kill what had been one of our best presidencies) it voted 8-0. There is no way such a close question wasn't more divided, but the Justices knew that voting as one was inmportant. Same thing happened in Brown v. Board.

There is a reason you don't have any examples from my lifetime.

what is different now is that liberal justices don't give two fucks about the country.

To the extent that you mean that conservatives have in the past given in to the tide of history for the sake of unity, I think you're right. To the extent that you expect liberal to do the opposite, whatever.

See bush v. Gore.

Yes, if only the liberal judges had acquiesced in the conservatives' purely political debasement of themselves. It would have been so wonderful for the country.

HCR should die 9-0. It won't because of politics, but not from the conservsative side.

If it dies, it's entirely because of politics from the conservative side. Scalia (and Kennedy if memory serves) has already ruled that the commerce clause extends to simple possession of marijuana grown on your own property (thus having never moved in interstate commerce), based on the highly questionable assumption that your possession increases demand for marijuana, which is otherwise traded across state lines. There is literally no way to logically square that position with notion that the commerce clause does not extent to regulating how people pay for health care as part of an comprehensive scheme of health care regulation, but based on the oral arguments, at least Scalia seems poised to try.

Btw, should they strike it down, the result is going to be a massive waive of litigation arguing that all kinds of things are regulations of impermissible "inactivity," 99.9% of which are going to be rejected as silly attempts to shift the frame of reference. Which, of course, is exactly what the mandate opponents seem to have successfully done here.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Checked your tail light recently?

pls. explain

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

There is a reason you don't have any examples from my lifetime.



To the extent that you mean that conservatives have in the past given in to the tide of history for the sake of unity, I think you're right. To the extent that you expect liberal to do the opposite, whatever.



Yes, if only the liberal judges had acquiesced in the conservatives' purely political debasement of themselves. It would have been so wonderful for the country.



If it dies, it's entirely because of politics from the conservative side. Scalia (and Kennedy if memory serves) has already ruled that the commerce clause extends to simple possession of marijuana grown on your own property (thus having never moved in interstate commerce), based on the highly questionable assumption that your possession increases demand for marijuana, which is otherwise traded across state lines. There is literally no way to logically square that position with notion that the commerce clause does not extent to regulating how people pay for health care as part of an comprehensive scheme of health care regulation, but based on the oral arguments, at least Scalia seems poised to try.

Btw, should they strike it down, the result is going to be a massive waive of litigation arguing that all kinds of things are regulations of impermissible "inactivity," 99.9% of which are going to be rejected as silly attempts to shift the frame of reference. Which, of course, is exactly what the mandate opponents seem to have successfully done here.

what you guys never seem to get, when you belittle the arguments against the law is that it's been shot down by Appeals Courts already. Anything you don't like is stupid and purely politics.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Adder

He said it would be unprecedented for the court to strike down a major program as outside the commerce clause powers. There's nothing silly about that.

What is silly is that it got reported as him saying there shouldn't be judicial review.

He should have avoided the republicn buzz words of "unelected judges" but that's about it.

I think what is silly is that every single one of us wrote that stupid memo at some point or another. I know I wrote it at least three times. Twice in college and once in law school.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

unshaven hounds

I note that if I win the next K race, this is my choice for the next thread title.

Is this kind of like the insects our RNC chair compares women to?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

what you guys never seem to get, when you belittle the arguments against the law is that it's been shot down by Appeals Courts already. Anything you don't like is stupid and purely politics.

It's also been upheld by Appeals Courts already.

And it's not stupid. It's highly clever. Randy Barnett and the rest were very smart in coming up with something entirely new to argue for why this isn't otherwise squarely within the precedents, which wasn't an easy task.

The thing his Prof. Barnett should have won in Raich -- both "interstate" and "commerce" should be the actual limits on commerce clause power. "Inactivity" and "omg, no limit on federal power" should not be.

But those latter two have not yet been rejected by the supreme court, so they give the conservative majority something to hang their hat on when they ultimately make the ruling that their political fellow travelers want them to make.

My problem with that is the peg seems pretty darn weak to me, especially when coupled with decisions like Raich.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Nixon... one of our best presidencies...

As it was shortly before I was born (and thus lost in the period of history that is hardest to learn about), I have a pretty narrow view of the Nixon presidency. But I have a hard time getting to a era of price controls (socialism!) as among the best presidencies.

Perhaps I'm missing the greater wonders.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

you still don't realize when you link to a blogger you're not telling us what you think, do you?

Andrew Cohen is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and legal analyst for 60 Minutes. He is also chief analyst and legal editor for CBS Radio News and has won a Murrow Award as one of the nation's leading legal analysts and commentators.

I think it's cute the way that you call anyone whose work is distributed via the internet a "blogger" -- it dates you, but it's cute.

I continue to believe that the Supreme Court is sensitive to politics, and worried about its own legitimacy.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

It may come out just fine thanks to the Rs, but I just think the words that came out of his mouth are kind of silly and don't make much sense to me.

You weren't the target audience.

Rule of thumb: Whenever your staff has to explain what you meant to say and describe it as what you really said, but what they say you said isn't what came out of your mouth, you said the wrong thing.

I don't think his staff had to explain anything, but I do think they were happy to take the chance to keep the story alive another day.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

You are totally off on this. He is not speaking to the court at all (as if they would listen - "after all the briefs, orals and months of thinking about this, we were going to strike it down but now that Obama has reminded us, we changed our mind") - seriously?

His audience is the public and this is his plan B. He is undermining the legitimacy of the court's decision, so he can run against that, rather than having to defend why his primary focus when the world was crumbling was passing an unconstitutional law.

And he got bitch slap by an appellate court judge, which is so beneath him. It was absolutely terrible from a political standpoint.

I agree with your second paragraph. But I disagree that the Supreme Court is not sensitive to the politics of this, and I think what the Fifth Circuit judge said is excellent for Obama. It kept the story alive and proved that conservative judges are acting politically. From a political standpoint, there is not a single voter in the entire country who both thought Obama was "bitch slapped" by that judge and had the remotest chance of voting for him in the fall.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

I ... think it was cute for the 3rd branch to actually defend itself for once. My sense is that this judge could give too shits about HCR; his main bone is defending a co-equal branch of government.

Actually, that's not true at all.