Archive for supreme court
Church and State
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Even the usually reliable E.J. Dionne and Chris Matthews are are upset with Obama for prohibiting “the free exercise thereof” by ordering Catholic institutions to provide free birth control with their health care plans.
Actually Congress hasn’t prohibited the free exercise of religion. The president has. Tricky.
Anyway, Obama should be thankful Jesse Jackson can’t enforce his personal views on birth control.
I Know Where You’re Going
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Big Brother is watching you, with a warrant. The Supreme Court ruled the cops can’t plant a GPS device on your car without one. However, the NYT tells us, you can be your own big bro for only $300.
Buy it Now
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The administration has asked the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the Obama Care individual mandate to buy insurance, right away.
Meanwhile, Obama Motors is offering free loaner cars if your Volt bursts into flames.
The Don Rickles Administration
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The Heckler in Chief has gone from insulting the Supreme Court and Paul Ryan, to all the Republicans in Congress. Here’s Obama. And here’s Biden.
Update: Here’s a Michelle Malkin column about Biden’s thuggish behavior toward journalists in this case and others.
Rule of Law
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The president has ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and ordered the Justice Department not to defend it.
What is the DOMA you ask? Well, according to the WSJ…
it was passed in 1996 by large majorities in both houses of Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton.
The law says the federal government will only recognize marriages that are between a man and a woman. States can still allow same-sex marriages—and five states plus the District of Columbia have done so. But people married under those state laws aren’t accepted as married under federal law.
Same sex couples get unfavorable death tax treatment under the law…
For example, a woman inheriting money from her deceased same-sex partner doesn’t get the tax benefits that federal tax law allows for a person inheriting from a spouse.
A Washington Post editorial, however, points out the two edged swordiness of the president’s approach by asking if a future Republican president might refuse to defend Obamacare from constitutional challenges.
Federal Power
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A federal judge ruled that the federal government doesn’t have the power to make you go out and buy something you otherwise wouldn’t – health care in this case. The government claims its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce gives it the right to do just that.
Nat Hentoff doesn’t think any clause of the constitution gives the government the right to assassinate its own citizens who become jihadists.
Nasty Free Speech
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The creeps who protest at the funerals of dead soldiers appeared before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. They were sued by the father of Matthew Snyder, a marine whose funeral they picketed. The protesters are led by a preacher named Fred Phelps. Their beef is with homosexuality and they claim that dead soldiers are God’s punishment. The thing is, unless the Supreme Being files a brief, they may be well within their rights. A 1988 court ruling, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, unanimously upheld the right to nasty speech unless it can be proven false.
USA Today has a complete story with video.
It’s a Surprise
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Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi explain here that you have to pass their 2000 page bills to find out what’s in them.
William Saletan has an interesting piece in Slate detailing how Kagan, while working in the Clinton White House, doctored a report on partial birth abortion by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynocologists. He points out that the report was taken as expert opinion in court rulings. If she gets on the Supreme Court and overturns a ruling because it was based on her original lie, would that make her an activist judge?
Vapid Confirmation Hearing
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Elena Kagan doesn’t have much of a legal paper trail. This is considered a good career move for Supreme Court nominees, ever since Robert Bork talked his way out of a job. One footprint she has left, however, is a 15 year old complaint that the Bork-A-Dope strategy has caused confirmation hearings to become “vapid” .
Diversity
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Kathleen Parker noticed that if Kagan is confirmed all three women justices will be from New York.