care?
---
not much ... it's when they hand down a ruling that the shit will hit
the fan.
giving 9 (3 jews and 9 cahtolics) people the ability to force
Americans to buy insurance is wrong
On Mar 25, 1:30 pm, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-the-supreme-court-debates...
>
> What's going to happen during 3 days of arguments on health care?
> By Jeffrey Rosen, PROFESSOR OF LAW Published: March 23
>
> Starting Monday, the Supreme Court has scheduled six hours of oral
> arguments over three days to consider the constitutionality of
> health-care reform, the most time given to a case in more than 45
> years. We're certainly in for a historic event — but it might be an
> entertaining one, too.
>
> Oral arguments are always theatrical: The lawyers stand only a few
> feet from the justices, who loom above them on a curved bench, and
> they are barraged with so many questions that they often have trouble
> completing a sentence. The hearings are also an opportunity for the
> traditionally secretive Supreme Court to cut loose. In fact, the
> Roberts court is known as a "hot bench" — not a reference to the
> unusual sexiness of the justices but to the fact that eight of the
> nine are unusually chatty during oral arguments (Justice Clarence
> Thomas hasn't uttered a word since 2006). Even though the justices
> rarely change their minds during oral arguments if they already have
> strong views about a case, the hearings can clarify their thinking,
> offer some lively give and take, and occasionally lead to humor.
>
> So, will the oral arguments over health-care reform produce some
> laughs? Here's a preview of what might transpire when the commerce
> clause becomes a punch line.
>
> Justice Antonin Scalia
>
> According to a 2010 study in the Communication Law Review, Scalia is
> the funniest member of the court, based on how many laughs the various
> justices have elicited in the courtroom. But his wit sometimes has a
> sharp edge. In 1988, when a lawyer fumbled for the answer to a
> question, Scalia exclaimed, "When you find it, say 'Bingo!' "
>
> Expect some zingers from Scalia in the health-care argument, perhaps
> focused on the not-so-side-splitting subject of whether Congress has
> the authority to require people to buy health insurance as part of its
> power to regulate interstate commerce. Imagine, for example, the
> following exchange:
>
> Solicitor General Donald Verrilli: "In 2005, Justice Scalia, you held
> that Congress has the power to prevent California from authorizing
> people to grow marijuana for their own use. Surely, the decision not
> to buy health insurance has a far greater impact on the economy."
>
> Justice Scalia: "Depends on what part of California you're from."
>
> Justice Stephen Breyer
>
> Breyer's jokes often follow a long question identifying the hardest
> issue in the case. He cares about legislative history and may focus on
> a striking irony in the health-care law briefs: During the debate over
> the legislation in Congress, Republicans insisted that the mandate to
> buy health insurance should be considered a tax, and Democrats
> countered that it shouldn't. The moment President Obama signed the
> bill, though, both sides rushed to court to claim the opposite:
> Democrats now insist that the mandate is absolutely a tax (and
> therefore authorized by the taxing clause of the Constitution), and
> Republicans are equally confident that it's not.
>
> This debate is also relevant to whether the court has the power to
> hear the case in the first place. If the mandate is a tax, according
> to a 1867 law, litigants may have to wait until it goes into effect in
> 2014 to challenge it. If Breyer can get a laugh out of the "is it a
> tax?" debate, he deserves to be promoted to funniest justice.
>
> Chief Justice John Roberts
>
> All eyes will be on Roberts to see whether he is inclined to interpret
> the commerce clause of the Constitution as narrowly as he did in an
> opinion that gave rise to one of his most memorable one-liners as an
> appellate judge. In 2003, Roberts dissented from a ruling holding that
> the federal government could use the Endangered Species Act to prevent
> development on the habitat of the arroyo toad. He said the federal law
> couldn't be applied to "a hapless toad that, for reasons of its own,
> lives its entire life in California." Verrilli will try to convince
> Roberts that the interstate economic effects of thousands of uninsured
> sick people are far greater than those of the hapless toad, all the
> while avoiding the word "toad."
>
> As the crucial swing vote, Kennedy is most frequently flattered in
> Supreme Court briefs. Some libertarians hope that he will strike down
> the health-care mandate by invoking the same right to privacy that he
> recognized when he reaffirmed Roe v. Wade in 1992. "At the heart of
> liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of
> meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life," Kennedy
> wrote; Scalia later ridiculed this as the "sweet mystery of life"
> passage. For Scalia and the other conservatives, Roe v. Wade is the
> root of all constitutional evil. So if Paul Clement — who will argue
> before the court for the health-care law's challengers — wants to
> appeal to Kennedy without alienating the other conservatives, he may
> try to murmur "sweet mystery" so quietly that only Kennedy can hear
> it.
>
> Justices Elena Kagan
> and Sonia Sotomayor
> These justices weren't yet on the court during the period covered by
> the 2010 laughter study, but Kagan may have her eye on Scalia's
> "funniest justice" title. She delivered the best one-liner of the
> current Supreme Court term. Noting that the Federal Communications
> Commission had interpreted its TV indecency policy to allow the
> cursing in "Saving Private Ryan" and the nudity in "Schindler's List,"
> she said: "It's like nobody can use dirty words or nudity except for
> Steven Spielberg."
>
> It will be hard to top the "Spielberg exception," but perhaps Kagan
> can make something of the "Romney exception" — namely, the fact that
> the same arguments about the economic effects of self-insurance that
> Mitt Romney used to justify health-care reform in Massachusetts are
> the ones that lawyers challenging the Affordable Care Act are
> rejecting before the Supreme Court.
>
> Sotomayor has made her mark in oral arguments and in recent separate
> opinions by wondering aloud whether long-established Supreme Court
> doctrines should be reexamined. During arguments in the Citizens
> United case in 2009, she suggested looking again at the idea that
> corporations are people. "There could be an argument made that that
> was the court's error to start with," she said. In the health-care
> argument, perhaps Sotomayor will press the government to explain why,
> if corporations are people, they can't be forced to buy health
> insurance, too.
>
> Justices Ruth Bader
> Ginsburg and Samuel Alito
>
> Though not prone to punch lines, both are respected by lawyers for
> asking the most technically difficult questions about a case.
> Ginsburg, who once taught civil procedure, may be especially
> interested in the complicated question of whether, if the court
> strikes down the individual mandate, it should grant the government's
> request to wait for future cases to decide whether other provisions
> should be struck down as well.
>
> Alito may be interested in the question of whether the expansion of
> Medicaid unconstitutionally coerces the states by threatening them
> with the loss of federal funds.
>
> Justice Clarence Thomas
>
> Thomas is considered the justice most likely to strike down
> health-care reform. He alone among the current justices has signaled
> willingness to overturn a landmark 1942 case in which the court
> allowed Congress to regulate a farmer's cultivation of wheat in his
> own back yard for his own use. Thomas also ranks as the least funny
> justice, since he hasn't asked a question at an oral argument for the
> past six years. (Still waters may run deep, but they don't run funny.)
> Nevertheless, he has been known to speak when he cares passionately
> about an issue, as he did in a 2002 argument about a Virginia law
> banning cross-burning.
>
> Lucky ticket-holders will be waiting eagerly to see whether Thomas can
> restrain himself from leaning forward in his chair, pounding the bench
> and exclaiming, as those challenging the law have asked: "If the
> government can force you to buy health insurance, why can't it force
> you to buy broccoli?"
>
> Jeffrey Rosen is a law professor at George Washington University and
> the legal affairs editor of the New Republic. He is also an editor of
> "Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change."
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-the-supreme-court-debates...
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
--
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