The Official SCOTUS decides the fate of the Health Care Mandate Thread

The fact that you put these two things in the same light really says a lot.

that 9/11 poll is 6 years old

http://www.scrippsnews.com/911poll

Moxin trolling like he's pissed about only getting about 2 hours of sleep

A supreme shock for ‘La-La’ libs

Last Updated: 12:15 AM, March 29, 2012

Posted: 11:57 PM, March 28, 2012

The panicked reception in the mainstream media of the three-day Supreme Court health-care marathon is a delightful reminder of the nearly impenetrable parochialism of American liberals.

They’re so convinced of their own correctness — and so determined to believe conservatives are either a) corrupt, b) stupid or c) deluded — that they find themselves repeatedly astonished to discover conservatives are in fact capable of a) advancing and defending their own powerful arguments, b) effectively countering weak liberal arguments and c) exposing the soft underbelly of liberal self-satisfaction as they do so.

BUSINESS WIRE

Jeffrey Toobin

That’s what happened this week. There appears to be no question in the mind of anyone who read the transcripts or listened to the oral arguments that the conservative lawyers and justices made mincemeat out of the Obama administration’s advocates and the liberal members of the court.

This came as a startling shock to the liberals who write about the court.

Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker and CNN confidently asserted on Charlie Rose at the beginning of the week that the court would rule 7-2, maybe even 8-1 in favor of ObamaCare. The previous week, he called the anti-ObamaCare arguments “really weak.”

His view was echoed by an equally confident op-ed assertion by the veteran court reporter Linda Greenhouse, who in The New York Times declared the case against ObamaCare “analytically so weak that it dissolves on close inspection.”

It was quite a change, then, to see Toobin emerge almost hysterical from the Supreme Court chamber after two hours of argument on Tuesday and declare the proceedings “a train wreck for the Obama administration.”

Yesterday, after another two hours of argument, he suggested it might even be a “plane wreck.”

That was the general consensus across the board. It held that the two lawyers arguing against ObamaCare — Paul Clement and Michael Carvin — were dazzlingly effective, while the administration’s solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, put in a mediocre performance.

True enough. But here’s the thing: There was nothing new in what Clement and Carvin said.

Their arguments were featured in briefs already submitted to the court and available for general inspection. And they’d already been given weight by the two judicial opinions against the constitutionality of ObamaCare issued by federal district court judges — one by Henry Hudson in Virginia in December 2010, the other by Roger Vinson in Florida in January 2011.

The briefs exist. The decisions exist. You can Google them. They are strong, fluent, well-reasoned and legitimate. They take ObamaCare seriously, and they argue against it at the highest possible level.

Thus, the strength of the conservative arguments only came as a surprise to Toobin, Greenhouse and others because they evidently spent two years putting their fingers in their ears and singing, “La la la, I’m not listening” whenever the conservative argument was being advanced.

This is not to say that the pro-ObamaCare side had no arguments. It had plenty of arguments, and by far the most important interlocutor on its behalf was Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Her perceptive and crystal-clear questioning of Clement and Carvin should put to rest forever the idea (spread both by liberals and conservatives) that she is intellectually unworthy to serve on the nation’s highest court.

The defense of ObamaCare’s constitutionality relies mainly on the truism that everyone is sure to get sick at some point in their lives, and this makes the health-care market unlike any other market. For the liberals, this fact — bolstered by the Constitution’s Commerce Clause — gives Congress the power to compel every adult in the nation to buy a private health-insurance policy.

The attack on ObamaCare was that Congress does not have the power under the Commerce Clause to force a private citizen into a private contractual relationship. If such a thing is permitted to stand, the anti-ObamaCare forces argue, there will be no limit to Congress’s power in the future.

There’s no telling which of 10 possible ways the high court will finally rule. But one thing is for certain: There will again come a time when liberals and conservatives disagree on a fundamental intellectual matter. Conservatives will take liberals and their arguments seriously and try to find the best way to argue the other side.

And the liberals will put their fingers in their ears and sing, “La la la.”

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/supreme_shock_for_la_la_libs_LkWBvHWTzeCs4gvA3hdHKJ#ixzz1qW7TyQWe

jay cost has a great article as well

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs...tml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

and thanks for proving our point pesci, you fucking out of touch douche

You should of just linked the opinions and briefs mentioned in the article.

yeah but that would mean posting something of substance instead of grandstanding blog posts that are a complete waste of time to read because they're written by people without any legal expertise

read the jay cost article then, he has legal expertise

so he's a lawyer or has some kind of law degree? i'm about 5 paragraphs deep and it's pretty much generalizations about how liberals bad, conservatives good.

For those of you with hours to kill, this is the best of the opinions striking down Obamacare - http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20110131VINSON_HEALTH.pdf
and here is an opinion by a federalist/Republican appointee/likely future Supreme Court short-lister against the mandate (scroll down to Sutton's opinion) - http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/11a0168p-06.pdf

I think that, on paper, the government argument for the PPACA was more powerful. After listening to the broadcast of the arguments, Clement was better "in real life" than was Verelli. He was more passionate, answered questions more compellingly, and projected a better sense of being "right" than did Verelli. Also, it seemed a major misstep by the government to argue that the USSC should decide what parts to keep and what to trash if they did keep the law without the mandate.

I don't know if this will get overturned, but it seems more likely than I thought possible.

I think you're right - the briefs and lower court opinions look a lot more balanced because the precedent largely backs the constitutionality of the Act (although it certainly isn't a slam dunk like Pelosi and a lot of liberal commentators were suggesting). But both Verilli and Neal Katyal - both of whom are excellent lawyers - really struggled to put forth a limiting principle in oral arguments, and at that point, it is going to be very difficult for a federalist judge to uphold the law.

I think the SG is required to argue in support of all constitutional laws, and there are clearly parts of the statute that are constitutional. Don't think they could have avoided that argument, and if they had tried, the Court likely would have brought in an amicus to argue the issue like they did for the Anti-Injunction Act.

That is sickening.

i think he has a phd in political science, so i wouldn't say he's an expert concerning legal matters, although i think you'd have to say he's well educated concerning politics. he's more than just a random internet blogger. doesn't mean he didn't write a slanted/biased article, but just fwiw

I swear Swimfan, when you actually join in a debate you usually make good points. But the majority of your political posts are either bitching about what is being talked about, posting some article that bashes libs instead of talking about actual issues, or something about how terrible Obama is without mentioning why you think this way.

I mean, just look at the picture of that smug prick. He's not discussing any way to improve health care, he's not discussing the merits of the act or the judicial process, he's just saying "haha stupid liberals think we are dumb, we'll show them." with his arms crossed looking like Cartman bashing the jews.

Participate from time to time instead of just posting partisan bullshit. Most people here like discussing politics because we usually have solid debates that don't deteriorate into liberal vs. conservative bullshit. We're all on the same team, that's what drives me crazy about politics.

As much shit as I give Moxin/other conservative posters with brain power, I legit enjoy debating this shit with them.

I do not enjoy Swimfan's bullshit, his decent post to shit post ratio is like 1:1,000. Then there's Cougars and RUskoolie that are just off the planet.

He makes some good points in our Auburn political thread.

In here it's just like he only pops up when people are talking about shit he doesn't want them to talk about to bitch about it or else he just posts something off the wall bashing Obama.

You guys have a political thread on your team board? And it's not just a GOP circle jerk?

I'd be the equivalent of Rodney King on our board with the people coming at me from all directions.

I think that most of us who aren't party line shills understand that every situation isn't black and white, but shades of gray. We are also willing to compromise, which our elected representatives aren't, in order to get a mostly positive situation.

The fambeluh has everything on the fambeluh board. Very civil arguments about many things politics.

I would say a lot of the posters who came this way, did so because they hated the bunker and how idiotic they are in almost every manner. Kinda filtered out a lot of the dumbasses. There's a lot of conservatives still, but they're intelligent conservatives not just the "herp derp, welfare, abortion" type.

I'd say our fanbase on this board is about 65-35 conservative-liberal, but that's still pretty high considering the makeup of the actual auburn fanbase.

Yeah, 35% seems high as hell.

I literally can't name a Clemson poster that I believe I'd be able to label liberal. Then again, there's not many Clemson posters around this board and we don't have much political talk on the private board.

It also helps that we're all educated and understand how to have a civil discourse.

While we're on the topic of civil discourse and enjoying those types of discussions. You guys have probably seen me post links to my politics site in the past but I've allowed it to go dead for the most part primarily because school has taken the bulk of my time in the last 6-8 months. Once I'm done though in another two months, i plan to revamp the entire site with a new site design and makeup. Its primary purpose was to have a place where people of all political stripes could engage in discussion and every 3 posts wasn't "you're a fucking idiot because you're a liberal/conservative." Ideally, people of differing views could discuss politics and while they likely wouldn't convince each other in the end, they could at least step away from the discussion and say "that was a good spirited debate."

Getting a good balance of posters/writers is always key and honestly finding left leaning folks was hard as hell. I couldn't find lefty's that would stick around long enough. I tried to limit the number of far right conservatives I had there as well because even they annoy me a good potion of the time. When I get everything restarted, I will post the link over here. Hell I may try to find some folks from here to help with the rebuild. I certainly need some tech savvy people who understand programming. The blog portion of it tries to take a step back from the standard partisan blog bs and actually offer some thought provoking pieces. I've had some success in the past actually pairing a liberal and conservative and letting them do a point/counterpoint blog posts on a given issue (gay rights was the big one).

One of the things I wanted to do which fits in with my current focus is bring in academics and scholars for discussions on certain topics. For example, if you want to discuss why American's vote a certain way then it would be great to have someone that does research in that area. Basically, experts that can talk about different topics like I can on intel related stuff (if that makes sense). I think there is some good potential for people to come in and discuss things if I get the redesign done correctly.

If any of you guys have any ideas on this feel free to shoot them my way.

For the site, check out www.squarespace.com. Their sites are fairly easy to use (I use it for my business site) and should be robust enough to handle the demand/traffic.

I'll give that a look. I basically have a SMF forum (the software TMB use to have) and a word press blog sandwiched together right now. I like having both of those functions but I would like to better integrate them so it doesn't look so much like two separate web pages. I would also consider switching the forum software to this software or another one for the long run.

Did anyone else know that the White House issued a press release on Wednesday supporting Donald Verelli, Jr? Apparently there was so much criticism of his arguments on Tuesday, the WH Staff felt it needed to back up his choice as their solicitor for the case.

I can't imagine that happens very often. I'm shocked.

i did see that. seems like them feeling the need to stand up for him is pretty indicative that he did do a poor job, otherwise why would they think it was necessary to make such a statement? how often does the white house issue a statement like this? seems like usually they'd wait until a question is asked to make such a statement and not just do so out of their own volition. you have to know he wasn't on his A game when liberal outlets are saying the things they are, like "his defense of Obamacare on Tuesday may go down as one of the most spectacular flameouts in the history of the court." That's pretty harsh. does anyone know if the written arguments are available to the general public yet? i'd be interested to see how much better/worse his written argument is because he was quite flustered during oral arguments.

i can be civil, but no liberal here has really made a substantive argument as to why the commerce clause gives congress the power to create commerce solely to regulate it

perhaps because, its a fallacy, and as to why they are just trolling us and i respond in kind

I don't think you need the commerce clause anyway. Seems like a regular tax to me.

Even if you look at it just in terms of the commerce clause, it seems a lot more related to interstate commerce than many of the things they have covered under the commerce clause in previous decisions.

Read pages 34-53 of the Sutton opinion I linked to above - particularly 43-53.

sigh

I think what most people are claiming is that it's no different than any other tax that we're forced to pay whether we like it or not, since we all need health care at some point in our lives. It's not like forcing people to buy a product that they don't need. Hell, I've never called the fire department, but I fund their existence and am happy to do so because at some point I probably will call them.

However much I think that everyone in this country should have access to a method of paying for the health care they need, regardless of income and existing conditions, I'm not sure how constitutional it is to force everyone to have it. Everything that is being attempted by this bill is fantastic, but I'm just not sure it is within the right of the government to do it.

If this bill gets tossed, so be it. But god damnit the Republicans need to come back with something that actually addresses all of the problems that are trying to be addressed with the existing bill and quickly. Because the status quo is not fucking working and will bankrupt this country.

The ultimate irony out of all of this though is if the Democrats had not have been so scared with setting it up as a tax and calling it that from the beginning the court likely would have been pounding the conservative lawyers this week. However, even Kagan pointed out to the SG that President himself said this wasn't a tax. That whole line of discussions was comical but painful to listen to.

God damnit swimfan, this is the shit that pisses everyone off. Why make this post? What does it accomplish? You don't agree with the posts before you, so say why. This is the reason most people can't have fucking debates in real life. Instead of trying to understand what the other person is saying and retorting with why you don't agree, most people just act like their opinion trumps the others because they are obviously right, which pisses off the other person obviously, then it turns into a shitshow.

Respect other's opinions and you'll find that you might actually be able to persuade them to your view. Acting like your understanding is obviously way above them sure as hell isn't gonna do anything.

So short sighted. Why are people so fucking afraid of even bringing up the possibility of taxes? At times it really benefits everyone. I can't believe the democrats didn't see this coming.

And I thought that was the best argument made during oral arguments, or at least the most compelling.

First, health insurance is a payment vehicle, but you can pay cash to your family physician if you choose, same for meds. While most major procedures are paid via health insurance, it's not necessary to, and is actually still fairly common to pay out of pocket for childbirth.

Second, Clement argued that essential services (maternity coverage, child immunizations, etc.) shouldn't be mandated in every policy. Every 40-year old, single male is not going to need those services, and is only forced to buy them as a way to subsidize those who would use them, and he has no option to get out of that (other than paying the fine).

The ideologues in the left got in their own damn way. The far left was so pissed that they couldn't get the public option that they were ready to torpedo the entire bill.

But you can't just say it's not a tax because they didn't use the word "tax". If you do that then you open the door for the converse (is that the right word?) that you can make anything a tax just by calling it that. I think ultimately they will have to look to the mechanics and decide from that. Mechanically, it sure seems like a tax. It's limited based on income, codified in the Internal Revenue Code, and reported and paid on the individual income tax return.

Since Santorum criticized Romney the other day, Romney hasn't done a fucking thing and his chances look way better than they did even a week ago.

Weren't they explicit that it wasn't a tax when they were passing the bill.