printThe Ass had his formidable ears smacked about by Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. O’Connor, who is not exactly a conservative, “effectively rebutted President Obama’s warning that a ruling against Obamacare would be ‘judicial activism.'” (Washington Examiner)
Recall, President Obama had used the term “judicial activism” “when he described a possible ruling against Obamacare as “an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” (Washington Examiner)
O’Connor derided such reasoning today, without mentioning the president. “It seemed to me that it was primarily a lack of understanding by many people about the role of the judicial branch [that motivates charges of judicial activism],” O’Connor said today. “I really thought that we needed to enhance the education of young people about how our government works.”
Since federalism is a chimera—it no longer exists in any meaningful way—the level of decision-making is immaterial to me. In this context, what matters is the decision to strike down ObamaCare. Who cares which branch of the hydra-headed monster makes it, so long as it is made, and, once made, it holds.
If memory serves, the Ass’s “strong majority” was something like 219-214 in the House. Pelosi was calling in chits left and right, with none of these mental giants bothering to even read their own legislation.
The entire ObamaCare (AssCare?) fiasco will go down as one of the most shameful acts of this thoroughly corrupt and incompetent institution known as the state.
It is quite a feat to transform the freest, most prosperous country the world has ever known into a financially and morally bankrupt police state in less than 100 years.
To borrow a phrase from Bush Sr., “Where’s the outrage?”
I think if I were a SC Justice, and was using the will of the people at the time as a justification whether to support Obamacare, I’d have to also factor in that the 2010 elections represented an historic turnaround for democrats in Congress, driven largely by the Tea Parties and their opposition to Obamacare. This would suggest that the people were not ‘overwhelmingly’ for this legislation.
In the view of Obama, the PEOPLE overwhelmingly support Obamacare and only the RACISTS oppose it….
As for the Constitution, all 3 branches take an oath to uphold it and it thus should (normally) take all 3 branches to concur in a law (unless the Presidential veto is overridden by a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress). Sadly, the Constitution was put to sleep decades ago as was the lawmaking authority of Congress (in Obamacare, the President and Secretary of HHS are authorized to “make regulations” – something absolutely extra-Constitutional).
If the Supremes do overturn Obamacare, it will be by some arbitrary standard since a real CONSISTENT Constitutional standard would have overturned Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security years ago.