Back to Basics

Modern political liberalism is a lot like the old triangle trades of the 18^th century, in which crops were traded for manufactured goods which were then used to buy slaves, which were then sold to planters in exchange for more crops.

On the modern liberal plantation the formula has changed to “bigger government = more people dependent on (or at the mercy of) government = more votes for politicians who will further expand government”.

It’s a heck of a way to run a country, but liberals have gotten a lot of mileage out of it.  Obamacare is just the latest example.  It is one of the ultimate triumphs of political liberalism in America, which is why Joe Biden whispered to Obama at the signing ceremony that it was “a big f@*&ing deal”.

Joe was right, which means that the current Supreme Court case is a big deal too.

The impact of how the Court ultimately rules will reverberate across the country and impact every citizen and their relationship to every level of government from this point forward.

At its essence the case has nothing to do with health care.  It’s all about whether or not our Constitution has any limits.  Are there real boundaries to federal power, or are they just made up on the fly?  Is Congress able to determine the scope of its own power?  The founders would be aghast that we even have to ask such questions.

If Obamacare survives it will be a green light to every imaginable liberal pipe dream of federal government growth.  It would essentially say that “Congress can do whatever it wants, so long as it can somehow be defined as regulating commerce”.  That’s not the government that our Constitution gave us, and it’s not one that most Americans want to live under.

Our Founding Fathers distrusted power, especially centralized power, which is why they wrote the Constitution.  But if everything can be extrapolated to impact “interstate commerce”, then there truly is no limit on what Congress (and government) can do, which kind of makes the rest of the Constitution pointless.

One of the most amusing things about the recent ObamaCare hearings is the reaction from the media.  Their shock when they had to report that a majority of justices took a dim view of the bill’s constitutionality, and that they had the audacity to ask tough questions of Obama’s lawyer was hilarious.

They were incredulous that anyone could seriously be skeptical the notion that the federal government can do as it pleases.  It’s the same mindset that led Nancy Pelosi to stare blankly and ask “are you serious?” when asked if Congress really had the constitutional authority to pass Obamacare.  (Yes, Nancy, we are serious).

The case will be one of the most consequential in modern American history for several reasons:

From a regulatory standpoint, Obmacare represents thousands of untold new regulations and attendant bureaucrats.  Just think of each of the different elements of your life that could relate to health care, (your diet for example), and you have an entirely new sphere of potential government regulation.

“…Are you serious?”

Those are three simple words that form one simple question.  And the question has led us to this moment in time.

Recall in October of 2009, when then-Speaker of the U.S House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi was asked about the formulation of the Obamacare bill, and she asked that very question of a reporter.  “Madam Speaker,” a reporter from CNSNews.com said to her, “where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Ms. Pelosi seemed surprised.  Her indignant “are you serious?” response was followed with a slight bit of nervous laughter, as she then repeated herself. “Yes,” the reporter answered Ms. Pelosi, “yes I am.”

Pelosi’s Press Secretary Nadeam Elshami stated that the reporter’s inquiry was “not a serious question,” Pelosi shook her head in disbelief, and they both moved on to address another reporter, completely ignoring the question about “constitutionality.”

And after ignoring concerns about constitutionality for over three years, Democrats are now watching the Administration of their party Leader, Barack Obama, struggling to answer serious questions before the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. The left’s disregard for the limitations of government has been apparent for decades – President Obama himself was on record years before his election lamenting that the Constitution only stipulates what the government cannot do to you, instead of specifying what the government should do for you.

But now a moment of truth is staring all Americans in the face, as the Supreme Court will soon determine if the government can force you to buy something, along with determining whether or not the distinction between “citizen” and “non citizen” (as in Arizona’s illegal immigration law) matters any longer. As President Obama’s former Pastor Jeremiah Wright once famously said, “America’s chickens… are comin’ home to roost..”

The fact is that when Presidents and members of Congress dismiss the Constitution as Mr. Obama and his party have, the only thing standing between the individual citizen and the raw, brutal force of governmental power is the Supreme Court itself.  The American founders understood some things about the history of the world, as it existed leading up to our nation’s birth, and they recognized the natural human tendency of those in power to control and ultimately brutalize those beneath them.  This is why our Constitution stipulates that we are governed by three co-equal branches of government (not just one or two), and why those branches intentionally create a “check and balance” between each other.

So what if the Supreme Court says that Barack Obama is wrong?  What if the Justices collectively determine that our government cannot force the individual citizen to buy something, and that the distinction between being a citizen and an illegal immigrant is real? The Democrats would prefer a Supreme Court stacked with Obama appointees, who would then presumably approve of everything that Obama wants, but (thankfully) they haven’t achieved this yet.

If Democrats must campaign for the final months of this year’s election against a backdrop of Obama failures at the Supreme Court, we may see a well-financed P.R. assault against the Supreme Court Justices themselves.  History provides a lesson about this matter, because President Obama is not the first White House occupant to desire more power than the Constitution allows.

When U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan recused herself during Wednesday’s hearing on the constitutionality of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law, she received high praise from the nation’s news media, including Fox News Channel anchor Bill Hemmer. But there are those who claim Kagan recused herself knowing the case would be a failure for President Barack Obama and the Democrats with or without her participation.

“What would you say if you learned that a member of the highest court in the land has spent the last 30 years openly advocating for the destruction of the US Constitution and even went so far as to accept $20 million from Shariah Law proponents to accomplish her goal?” asks Alan Gottlieb, president of the Second Amendment Foundation.

“That Supreme Court Justice is Elena Kagan,” he bluntly states.

According to Gottlieb, the year after Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office with the goal of restoring America to greatness, Kagan penned a telling and disturbing senior thesis titled “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933.”  

Gottlieb claims that in that body of work, Kagan lamented that “a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States”; and that,” no “radical party” had yet “attained the status of a major political force.” Kagan went on to sound a rally cry for “those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America.”

And this cry for socialism wasn’t merely the mindset of a young, impressionable college student. Elena Kagan has spent the rest of her career working to remove the underpinnings of freedom and destroy the American Constitution from within, Gottlieb notes.

“And Kagan’s grand plan has worked very well indeed,” he added.

HARVARD’S DEAN OF LAW

After graduate school Kagan went on to become the Dean at Harvard Law School, where she removed Constitutional Law classes from the curriculum, and replaced those necessary and time honored classes with required studies of international law, Gottlieb points out.

And in what appears to be a game of using a mutual enemy’s resources to accomplish ones’ true objective, Kagan also accepted a $20 million grant from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal — a noted Shariah Law proponent — to implement an “Islamic Studies” program, according to conservative pundits such as Michelle Malkin.

“Lest we think Kagan’s intentions are ancient history, take a look at her line of questioning when hearing the ObamaCare case last week. Rather than question the thinly veiled socialist Trojan horse as an affront to our Constitution, Kagan almost seemed willing to defend ObamaCare and salvage the master plan to fundamentally change America into a new Euro-socialist model,” Gottlieb said.

“By definition, our Supreme Court is charged with upholding, defending and preserving the United States Constitution. The Judges on the Supreme Court are meant to protect our freedom, not destroy it. To do otherwise is nothing short of treason,” said Gottlieb, who also serves as chairman of AmeriPac, a conservative political action committee.

“Oran’s Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as an attempt to ‘overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation],” he notes.

Destruction of the Constitution is an attempt to overthrow and seriously injure America.

Actually, the Court may be willing to uphold a part of the law.

William Jacobson reports: “Oral argument reports: Supreme Court appears poised to uphold key part of Arizona Immigration Law (SB 1070).”

And see CSM, “Arizona immigration law: Another setback for Obama at Supreme Court?”

Eight U.S. Supreme Court justices listened to legal arguments regarding Arizona’s immigration enforcement law (SB 1070) on Wednesday. Only Associate Justice Elena Kagen was absent after she recused herself due to her input on the Obama administration’s case while she served as Solicitor General.

During the long anticipated Arizona v. U.S. case,  the constitutionality of Arizona state’s popular law was debated. The law stipulates that local police officers in Arizona are permitted to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws if “reasonable suspicion” exists that the person is in the country illegally.

In order to block the measure, the Obama Administration sued, claiming that Governor Jan Brewer and Arizona lawmakers are not legally entitled to enforce immigration law since it is a federal matter. But attorneys representing Arizona state countered by stating the federal government is unable — or unwilling – to stop rampant illegal immigration.

The eight justices participated in almost 90 minutes of legal back-and-forth from opposing attorneys on Wednesday, and U.S. media sources such as Fox News Channel indicated the justices appeared highly doubtful of the Obama administration’s objections to the measure, dubbed Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act by the lawmakers who wrote and sponsored the bill.

According to several polls, upwards of 68 percent of Americans and 60 percent of Arizonians want the state government to enforce immigration regulations and laws.

Attorney Paul Clement, representing Arizona, told the high court that the federal government has long failed to control the problem, and that states have discretion to assist in enforcing immigration laws.

However,  the Obama administration’s Solicitor General Donald Verrilli countered that assertion, saying immigration matters are under the federal government’s exclusive authority and state ” interference” would only make things worse.

But when he was questioned by Justice Antonin Scalia  regarding President Barack Obama’s assertion that the Arizona law amounted to “racial profiling,” Verrilli conceded it was not racial profiling.

A ruling on the case is expected some time in late June, before the justices recess for the summer.

Besides Arizona, a number of organizations submitted Amicus Curiae (Friend of the Court) briefs including former Justice Department chief of staff — now radio talk show star — Mark Levin and his Landmark Legal Foundation, the top corruption investigating public-interest group Judicial Watch, and others.

Quick – can you guess who I’m describing here?

He campaigned against financial mismanagement, and the “harsh realities” of global capitalism. He pledged during his campaign to end corruption in both the government and the private sector.

After being elected President, he claimed that he had “inherited” the worst economic situation in recent history and then went about consolidating his power. Once privately-owned enterprises were “restructured” into government owned entities, some even organized into workers’ cooperatives.

Unemployment remained painfully high, even as the much-celebrated “reform” measures were being implemented. As private sector workers suffered with worsening economic conditions, government employees enjoyed the comforts of steady work and benefits while the President and other policy makers sought increasing control over the nation’s privately-owned wealth.

Does this seem like a description of the Obama Presidency?  Certainly this depicts, at least in part, what we’ve experienced in the U.S. since the earliest days of Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.

But – believe it or not – this is actually a description of the ascendency of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. In fact, you could call this a “textbook case.”  I’ve paraphrased a bit for the sake of column space, but this description of Chavez appears in “International Business: Competing In The Global Marketplace,” a text book currently used among M.B.A. students at many of America’s top graduate business schools.

Chavez became the democratically elected President of Venezuela in 1998, a decade before Barack Obama was elected to be our President. And the reason Chavez has been able to morph in to a dictator – he has successfully seized control over privately owned banks, tv stations, farms and gold holdings, to name a few items – and the reason he is still in power today, is because the first thing he did after taking office in 1999 was to substantively change his country’s constitution and re-arrange the nation’s judiciary.

The fact that one man could so quickly seize control of the entire country of Venezuela, probably speaks to some relative weaknesses in that nation’s constitution.  And the fact that no U.S. President – not even Barack Obama – has seized this type of control over America, speaks to the relative strengths of both our U.S. Constitution itself, and the separation of powers among our three branches of government that are stipulated by our Constitution.

With so much of our individual liberty resting on the foundation of the U.S. Constitution – and yet with most of human history having been littered with not-so-benevolent dictators like Chavez – we should both expect that powerful leaders will want to overreach in to our lives, and be vigilant to call fowl when they do. Unfortunately, it seems that most Americans are shocked by President Barack Obama’s contemptuous remarks about the Supreme Court last week, as the court review his signature “healthcare reform” law.  Worse still, it seems that very few Americans recognize the President’s behavior is problematic.

Recently President Obama made this remarkable statement, “Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” For someone reputed to be a former professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago this statement is hard to explain. Any high school student in a sophomore American History class knows there are many precedents for the Supreme Court making laws passed by Congress null and void. As a matter of fact, in the system of government tradition has delivered to us overturning laws as unconstitutional has been an important power of the Supreme Court for more than two hundred years.

And if the primary content of the President’s statement isn’t strange enough the supporting information is wrong. Obamacare wasn’t passed by a strong majority in Congress. In reality the final vote in the House vote was 220 to 215. Every Republican and thirty four Democrats voted against the law. In the Senate the vote was sixty Democrats and Independents voting for and thirty nine Republicans voting against. The Democrats, even though they controlled both houses of Congress knew they would lose enough of their own members that it was going to be a close vote so they moved the bill outside the regular order of business and used a legislative maneuver known as reconciliation to avoid giving the Republicans the opportunity to filibuster the law.

What is the context of these current pressure tactics being used by the executive branch on the judicial branch?

Soon after taking office in 1829, President Andrew Jackson a long time Indian fighter spearheaded one of his signature pieces of legislation through Congress: the Indian Removal Act. This act gave the president the power to negotiate treaties with the various tribes which still existed in America East of the Mississippi. These treaties, often accepted either under duress or under questionable circumstances seized the lands of the tribes and forced them to move West to the Indian Territory in what is today Oklahoma. The time for fighting had passed and most of the tribes quietly left their ancestral lands.

One tribe decided to try another route. The Cherokee Nation had adopted the ways of the Europeans. They devised their own written language and wrote their own Constitution. They had their own plantations, printing presses, and businesses. They also had their own lawyers and instead of going on the warpath as their ancestors had done they went to court to fight the orders from the State of Georgia which dispossessed them of their land.

In two cases; Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the United States Supreme Court considered whether or not it had the power to enforce the rights of Native American nations in disputes between them and the states. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to review the claims of any Indian nation within the United States. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Court ruled that only the Federal Government not the states, had the power to regulate the Indian nations.

Has anyone mentioned lately that our President, Barack Obama, is a constitutional scholar? I ask because he didn’t seem to have a very good grip on matters Constitutional yesterday when asked about the possibility that the Supreme Court might overturn his signature piece of legislation.

I want to give you his full answer as recorded by Michael Memoli of the Los Angeles Times. It’s long, so I’ll jump in once in a while with a little commentary of my own just to break the seemingly endless stream of Constitutional scholarity.

“I actually continue to be confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law. And the reason is, because in accordance with precedent out there, it’s constitutional.

“That’s not just my opinion by the way. That’s the opinion of legal experts across the ideological spectrum, including two very conservative appellate court justices that said this wasn’t even a close case.”

Oh, so if some legal experts agree with you, and a couple of them happen to be members of a party not your own (even if one of them voted for you and you named the other one Ambassador to Malta), your law is constitutional? We don’t need to consult the actual Constitution or anything else written on the subject by the guys who wrote the Constitution? Well, that does make things handy. The converse, of course, would mean that if we conservatives could find a couple left-wing legal experts who believed Roe v. Wade was wrongly-decided, then we could get it overturned. Do you think the President really wants that to be the standard?

No. Neither do I.

The bigger problem with his opinion is that he’s not really offering a learned legal opinion as befits a former Harvard Law Review President and constitutional scholar. His answer, basically, boils down to “It’s constitutional, because shut up, that’s why”. I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that ipse dixit would get you laughed out of every courtroom on the planet.

“I think it’s important — because I watched some of the commentary last week — to remind people that this is not an abstract argument. People’s lives are affected by the lack of availability of healthcare, the inaffordability of healthcare, their inability to get healthcare because of preexisting conditions.

“The law that’s already in place has already given 2.5 million young people healthcare that wouldn’t otherwise have it. There are tens of thousands of adults with preexisting conditions who have healthcare right now because of this law. Parents don’t have to worry about their children not being able to get healthcare because they can’t be prevented from getting healthcare as a consequence of a preexisting condition. That is part of this law.

“Millions of seniors are paying less for prescription drugs because of this law. Americans all across the country have greater rights and protections with respect to the insurance companies, and are getting preventive care because of this law.

“So, that’s just the part that’s already been implemented. That doesn’t speak to the 30 million people who stand to gain coverage once it’s fully implemented in 2014.

Pardon my cruel conservative heart here, but so what? Not everything that is good is constitutional.

Like the MCP (Master Control Program) in TRON 1, Obama has already sucked the life out of Congressional members. That once co-equal (per the US Constitution) branch of the US Government is no longer viable and has become little more that a “me too” for Dictator-in-Chief Obama’s destructive and malevolent policies and behaviors. Whether its members were threatened with harm or coerced with very-large bribes, they work for Obama and the New World Order now. The citizens of the USA have been reduced to mere chattel and are currently being treated as such. If you will recall, Speaker of the House John Boehner (after several good on-camera cry-fests) lost no time before he willingly caved to any and all of Obama’s demands and still maintains that personal posture and proclivity today.

Note: Instead of exhibiting any conservative tendencies — whatsoever — Boehner appears to be Marxist San-Fran-Nan in drag.

Now, however, Obama has decided it’s time to set his attention onto the third co-equal branch of government and is in the process of attacking and beginning to destroy the power, purview and will of the Supreme Court of the United States. As has been affected since the inception of the US Supreme Court, after SCOTUS hears oral arguments (this time regarding ObamaCare) from both the US Government’s and the opposition’s attorneys, the Associate Justices take a preliminary vote. These votes were — prior to Obama’s reign over the American people — kept secret until both minority and majority opinions could be pondered and, eventually, put to text.

Note: With the two recent Obama appointees to the High Court, we cannot assume that is still the case and one or both may have already alerted their Master.

In his usual arrogant and condescending manner, Obama — this week — slammed the Associate Justices as being an “unelected group of people” and indicated it was not even their business (unless they provide no more than a rubber-stamp for and to his policies and programs) to determine ANYTHING about ObamaCare…as it was HIS bill and passed by Congress (but, only the Democrat-controlled Congress). Obama’s exact words are: “I just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step.”

Note: Obama’s disdain — if not hatred — for all who attempt to uphold the US Constitution is both palpable and truly breathtaking.

Only one of the problems with Obama’s ludicrous statement is that it IS the job of SCOTUS to rule upon the Constitutionality of legislation brought to it and if proven to be unconstitutional said legislation is overturned by the High Court. On the other hand, “judicial activism” occurs when judges (traditionally and 99.99999% of the time are leftist jurists) WRITE new laws. Obama knows this. Although the dictator may be certifiably insane he’s not stupid.

If SCOTUS has — as has Congress — been compromised by the Obama syndicate, we will know by June 2012.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Okay, got that out of my system. Yesterday, as you all know, President Obama went after the “unelected” justices of the Supreme Court. So much for the constitutional law lecturer’s appreciation of the separation of powers.

Today, during another of his regular press conference diatribes against everyone who stands in his way, the man who has circumvented Congress with dozens of czar appointments and scores of executive orders and administrative fiats, warned the court again — to show “deference” to Congress.

From the transcript:

MR. SINGLETON: Mr. President, you said yesterday that it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress. But that is exactly what the Court has done during its entire existence. If the Court were to overturn individual mandate, what would you do, or propose to do, for the 30 million people who wouldn’t have health care after that ruling?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, let me be very specific. We have not seen a Court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on a economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce — a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner. Right? So we’re going back to the ’30s, pre New Deal.

And the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this.

Now, as I said, I expect the Supreme Court actually to recognize that and to abide by well-established precedence out there. I have enormous confidence that in looking at this law, not only is it constitutional, but that the Court is going to exercise its jurisprudence carefully because of the profound power that our Supreme Court has. As a consequence, we’re not spending a whole bunch of time planning for contingencies.

Somehow, I suspect the high court is not going to take to Obama’s finger-wagging very lightly.

At least one lower court is already leading a legal backlash:

In the escalating battle between the administration and the judiciary, a federal appeals court apparently is calling the president’s bluff — ordering the Justice Department to answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom.

The order, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, appears to be in direct response to the president’s comments yesterday about the Supreme Court’s review of the health care law. Mr. Obama all but threw down the gauntlet with the justices, saying he was “confident” the Court would not “take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

Overturning a law of course would not be unprecedented — since the Supreme Court since 1803 has asserted the power to strike down laws it interprets as unconstitutional.