2nd Judge Strikes down Obamacare

[Big War Bird]

Federal Judge Strikes Down Obama Administration's Health Care Overhaul

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- A federal judge ruled Monday that the Obama administration's health care overhaul is unconstitutional, siding with 26 states that sued to block it.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson accepted without trial the states' argument that the new law violates people's rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties.

Attorneys for the administration had argued that the states did not have standing to challenge the law and that the case should be dismissed.

The next stop is likely the U.S. Supreme Court. Two other federal judges have upheld the insurance requirement, but a federal judge in Virginia also ruled the insurance provision violates the Constitution.

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Apparently this judge doesn't know about An Act for the relief of Sick and Dsiabled Seamen. lol


Read the whole decision here. Sorry I haven't had time to read the decision myself.

[Panzerbear]

excellent news.

[antaeus]

yes. the people should be free to choose not to have access to health care!

[Ó Cathasaigh]

yes. the people should be free to choose not to have access to health care!

Access to health care and health insurance are two separate things.

[Phier]

I still think this was part of the plan. The problem was the plan didn't include congress going all Tea Party on them.

[mrmouth]

FLA...

[B5C]

Oh I thought Conservatives were against activist Judges? lol

[Squiggle]

Oh I thought Conservatives were against activist Judges? lol

How the is this judicial activism? Did you read the decision? I did.

[B5C]

How the is this judicial activism? Did you read the decision? I did.

Not all of it. From the sounding of his paper. If he would have been here during the 1930s, he would try to kill social security or even later medicare.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/...ss_igoogle_cnn

Also add from CNN.

The healthcare law has been ruled four time. 2 Judges against and 2 judges supporting the Federal government.

[Big War Bird]

Oh I thought Conservatives were against activist Judges? lol

An activist judge is properly defined as one that uses his bench as a means of promoting what he or she thins the law ought to be as opposed to what it is. He does this by applying prinicples of the law (or Constitution) in novel or unusual ways, going beyond the text and intent, or just inventing interpretations just to fit the desired outcome.

This is not activism. The Constitution does in no way grant the federal government this kind of coercive power. All the judge had to do was look at the acts actions, compare to the powers of the federal government granted by the Constitution and see that it had acted beyond it expressly limited powers.

Easy peasy lomon squeezy.

[Matthias]

An activist judge is properly defined as one that uses his bench as a means of promoting what he or she thins the law ought to be as opposed to what it is. He does this by applying prinicples of the law (or Constitution) in novel or unusual ways, going beyond the text and intent, or just inventing interpretations just to fit the desired outcome.

This is not activism. The Constitution does in no way grant the federal government this kind of coercive power. All the judge had to do was look at the acts actions, compare to the powers of the federal government granted by the Constitution and see that it had acted beyond it expressly limited powers.

Easy peasy lomon squeezy.

The Constitution can and is interpreted every which way to fit a particular worldview. Your intepretation is not "correct". There is no such thing as a "correct" interpretation, just whatever the current makeup of the SC says it is.

This judge declared a law passed by the people (Congress), unconstitutional. So he is being a judicial activist. Course, that's what judges are supposed to do. If they think a law is unconstitutional, then they should act.

Doesn't mean the SC will agree with them, and that's all that matters in the end.

Titling it "Obamacare" seriously hurts your credibility anyways. Spouting right wing talking points as part of a discussion doesn't bode well for your reasoning.

[Oldgamer]

Oh I thought Conservatives were against activist Judges? lol

Only when judges don't have the Constitution in mind, as they render their decisions. Phier's remarks about liberals not understanding "the concept of 'unconstitutional' if it ... smacked them in the forehead" is completely on target. To them, the Constitution is "alive", meaning they can legislate without a legislature. To conservatives, however, it is the legislature which legislates. The judiciary merely decides constitutionalist.

You see, we understand who the activist judges are.

[B5C]

Only when judges don't have the Constitution in mind, as they render their decisions. Phier's remarks about liberals not understanding "the concept of 'unconstitutional' if it ... smacked them in the forehead" is completely on target. To them, the Constitution is "alive", meaning they can legislate without a legislature. To conservatives, however, it is the legislature which legislates. The judiciary merely decides constitutionalist.

You see, we understand who the activist judges are.

Why do you think this judge wasn't an activist judge? Is it because the Judge and you share the same ideology? If you read his paper. He sounded like a tea party activist AND he posted an URL too a free market leaning website. Also he knew that most judges would just void this clause and not the rest of the bill, but this bill was "uniqed" so it must be killed.

[Oldgamer]

Why do you think this judge wasn't an activist judge? Is it because the Judge and you share the same ideology? If you read his paper. He sounded like a tea party activist AND he posted an URL too a free market leaning website. Also he knew that most judges would just void this clause and not the rest of the bill, but this bill was "uniqed" so it must be killed.

Why do you think that he is an activist judge? Because you and he do not share the same ideology? We can play these games all night, you know.

An activist judge would have issued an immediate injunction against the implementation of Obamacare, thus denying the "will of the people", as expressed by the 111th Congress, and the President. The fact that he didn't do so is de facto proof that his purpose was to send it to the Supreme Court, so that they can render the final decision upon its constitutionality.

I don't deny that I am happy about his decision. But I want to hear SCOTUS' opinion before I jump with joy ...

[Cougman21]

Only when judges don't have the Constitution in mind, as they render their decisions. Phier's remarks about liberals not understanding "the concept of 'unconstitutional' if it ... smacked them in the forehead" is completely on target.

Because making gay marriage illegal is constitutional?....I'm gonna write that down....

Iowa just ousted 3 SC justices because they ruled that banning gay marriage was unconstitutional, which was actually brought to the sc by a republican group. Now these same republicans, who know so much about the constitution apparently, are trying to get it banned again.

[Oldgamer]

Because making gay marriage illegal is constitutional?....I'm gonna write that down....

Iowa just ousted 3 SC justices because they ruled that banning gay marriage was unconstitutional, which was actually brought to the sc by a republican group. Now these same republicans, who know so much about the constitution apparently, are trying to get it banned again.

As I've stated on numerous occasions in these forums, I want the government out of the marriage business, entirely.

@Matthias
The "public option" is why I want to see this bill ruled unconstitutional. Considering that the United States budget is now standing at $1.5 trillion, exactly how are America's taxpayers goiing to fund the healthcare of 307 million people? Also, the public option is another in the America's socialists' attempts to subject the entire populace of this country to the whims of government bureaucrats.

By the way, the New York Times is hardly a "neutral" opinion on anything ...

[Matthias]

As I've stated on numerous occasions in these forums, I want the government out of the marriage business, entirely.

@Matthias
The "public option" is why I want to see this bill ruled unconstitutional. Considering that the United States budget is now standing at $1.5 trillion, exactly how are America's taxpayers goiing to fund the healthcare of 307 million people? Also, the public option is another in the America's socialists' attempts to subject the entire populace of this country to the whims of government bureaucrats.

By the way, the New York Times is hardly a "neutral" opinion on anything ...

This might be news to you.... but there is no public option in the bill.

Right now, the US taxpayers are funding the healthcare of 307 million people, just in the most inefficient, costly way in the world, and not very well for those without insurance. They still go to emergency rooms.

Indeed, how is it that other countries can have universal healthcare with better results and spend half of what we are spending per capita?

[Ó Cathasaigh]

Oh I thought Conservatives were against activist Judges? lol

lol, and I thought Liberals were all for them? lol

[B5C]

Judge possible Tea Party supporter?

Vinson's ruling, though, voided the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act over the individual mandate to purchase insurance, whereas Hudson just killed the mandate and left the rest to stand. That's rather bold! And he explains it with a nod to the Boston Tea Party and the platitudes of the current Tea Party:

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.
If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be "difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power" [Lopez, supra, 514 U.S. at 564], and we would have a Constitution in name only. Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended.

It didn't help that the Obama administration approached universal coverage through the "commerce" of mandated for-profit insurance instead of, say, taxing people and then providing health services. But we all know the political realities. So when you defend it under the Commerce Clause before a judge like Roger Vinson who doesn't see the natural difference between health care — something that all humans will have to pay heavy costs for during their lifetimes — and every other form of "commerce," like the luxury product tea, then you're likely to get a hyperventilating ruling that claims there's no limit to what the federal government can do in any industry now.

How else did Judge Vinson make his ruling, though? Well, he watched a nifty video on the Reason magazine blog:

For example, in the course of defending the Constitutionality of the individual mandate, and responding to the same concerns identified above, often-cited law professor and dean of the University of California Irvine School of Law Erwin Chemerinsky has opined that although "what people choose to eat well might be regarded as a personal liberty" (and thus unregulable), "Congress could use its commerce power to require people to buy cars." See ReasonTV, Wheat, Weed, and Obamacare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful, August 25, 2010, available at: http://reason.tv/video/show/wheat-we...bamacare-how-t.

He also came up with a math equation. Did you know that zero times zero is zero? Roger Vinson knows this, and that's why you can't have health care:

For example, in contest to individuals who grow and consume marijuana or wheat (even in extremely small amounts), the mere status of being without health insurance, in and of itself, has absolutely no impact whatsoever on interstate commerce (not "slight," "trivial," or"indirect," but no impact whatsoever) —- at least not any more so than the status of being without any particular good or service. If impact on interstate commerce were to be expressed and calculated mathematically, the status of being uninsured would necessarily be represented by zero. Of course, any other figure multiplied by zero is also zero. Consequently, the impact must be zero, and of no effect on interstate commerce.

http://gawker.com/5748196/why-was-th...constitutional

So the judge based some of his opinions on Tea Party ideals and libertarian blog sites?

[Kanaric]

-> Obama apellate judge -> ruled constititional.