Analysis: GOP can no longer look to court to repeal Obamacare

 

WASHINGTON — It’s clear now that any overhaul of the Affordable Care Act will have to come through the political system, not the court. And repeal-minded Republicans face trouble generating a mandate for change. Republicans were hoping the court would decide against this key part of the law — and in turn give the party momentum… Read the rest of this entry »

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SCOTUS: Same Sex Marriage Is Legal In California

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled on jurisdictional grounds that the Supreme Court of California had the right to overturn the Proposition 8 referendum to amended the State’s which made same sex marriage illegal.

The effect of the ruling is that same sex marriage is legal in California.

From SCOTUSblog:

Here’s a Plain English take on Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage:  After the two same-sex couples filed their challenge to Proposition 8 in federal court in California, the California government officials who would normally have defended the law in court, declined to do so.  So the proponents of Proposition 8 stepped in to defend the law, and the California Supreme Court (in response to a request by the lower court) ruled that they could do so under state law.  But today the Supreme Court held that the proponents do not have the legal right to defend the law in court.  As a result, it held, the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the intermediate appellate court, has no legal force, and it sent the case back to that court with instructions for it to dismiss the case

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Used Goods

Good news and potentially bad news

Have you heard about ecoATM?  It’s a really cool way to dispose of old cell phones or MP3 players and get some cash or donate to charity.

You put your device into an ATM-like machine which scans it, identifies it and gives you a range of prices that it will pay for the device based upon its condiditon.  If you like the prices, the machine asks that you insert a cable into the device so that it can evaluate the condition.  After a few moments a cash offer appears on the machine’s screen.  If you accept, it dispenses cash after giving you the option to donate a portion to a charity.  If you don’t accept, you get the device back.

Yesterday I took a Blackberry 9700 with a broken screen and three Palm Treos that I haven’t used for years to the machine at the Monmouth Mall.  The machine is outside of Modell’s and Boscov’s at the southern end of the mall.   There were two young women using the machine when I got there and several others watching the process.  I was quite surprised when the machine offered the young women $41 for the used phone.  I figured $5 or $10 would be the most offered.   I got $39 for the broken Blackberry and $1 each for the Palms.

Such transactions may become illegal by this time next year. Selling your car, furniture, books, art or clothes might also be illegal if you don’t get the permission of or pay a vig to the manufacturer of the product, depending on the outcome of a case the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons  is a case involving Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai man who came to the United States in 1997 to study at Cornell and stepped into the American Dream in the bookstore.  He noticed that the textbooks he was required to buy  cost a great deal more at Cornell’s bookstore than he could buy them for back home in Thailand.  He bought his books in Thailand.  He also bought enough books in Thailand, published by Wiley & Sons, to resell to his classmates and pocket $1.2 million in the process.

Wiley sued for copyright infringement, arguing that the first sale doctrine does not apply to goods first sold outside of the United States.  A jury agreed with Wiley and awarded the publisher $600,000.  The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict and now the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case on October 29.

It seems to defy logic and fairness that the manufacturer of a product would retain property rights after the valid sale of their product, regardless of where the sale took place.  However, SCOTUS was divided on this issue 4-4 in a 2010 case involving Costco and Swiss watch maker Omega.  Justice Kagen recused herself from the Costco/Omega case but will participate in Kirtsaeng v Wiley.

Don’t count on SCOTUS making sense.  We’ve seen them declare that women have the right to declare that embryos and fetuses are trespassers invading their privacy, the punishment for such trespass being death,  and that penalties are really taxes, even when Congress and the President says they are not taxes.

Posted: October 9th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: SCOTUS, U.S. Supreme Court | Tags: Blackberry, ecoATM, Kirtsaeng v Wiley, Monmouth Mall, Palm Treo, SCOTUS, U.S. Supreme Court | Comments Off on Used Goods

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Supremely Political: Did Roberts Pen BOTH Opinions?

 By Matt Roooney, cross posted from SaveJersey

The ObamaCare backstory gets worse all the time, Save Jerseyans.

We can never really know what happened in chambers. That said, emerging anonymous accounts seem to comport with what we can plainly observe about this repugnant capitulation to unconstitutional, unrestrained big government by Chief Justice John Roberts.

It was supremely political.

Be assured, I’m not leveling this charge simply because I don’t like the decision! The Chief Justice simply didn’t do a very good job of masking his purely tactical motivations.

If you read the conservative Kennedy-Alito-Thomas-Scalia dissent (click here – pdf), one of the first things you’ll notice is how the dissent frequently refers to the majority opinion as the “dissent.” Is the current batch of High Court clerks just sloppy? Or is something else going on here?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Legal Attire Outside The U.S. Supreme Court But Not On The Asbury Park Boardwalk

Photo Credit: Andy LoCascio, SCOTUSblog.com

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Christie: SCOTUS confirmed what we knew all along–ObamaCare is a tax

Governor Chris Christie issued the following statement about the Supreme Court’s decision on ObamaCare:

“I’ve been clear from the very beginning that I do not believe a one-size-fits-all health care program works for the entire country and that each governor should have the ability to make decisions about what works best for their state. Today’s Supreme Court decision is disappointing and I still believe this is the wrong approach for the people of New Jersey who should be able to make their own judgments about health care. Most importantly, the Supreme Court is confirming what we knew all along about this law – it is a tax on middle class Americans.”

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Supreme Court: ObamaCare Individual Mandate Is Constitutional As Tax

Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal wing of the Court in the 5-4 decision. Or was it a 6-3 decision?

Bush appointed Roberts.  Therefore, ObamaCare is Bush’s fault.

It will take time for legal scholars to figure out what the decision really means. 

Now we’ll have an election about it.

Bad news for the country.  Good news for the Romney campaign.

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What if Obama is declared ineligible?

What an unprecedented mess that would be.

In the unlikely event that any of the challenges to Barack Obama’s candidacy for a second term makes it all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court and succeeds, then what?

Before the case even got that far, would Judges and Justices appointed by Obama be eligible to hear and rule on the issue?   Can you imagine Hannity or Limbaugh if they do rule?  Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann (if he gets a job) if they don’t?

If Obama is ruled ineligible to serve as President of the United States, is he immediately removed from office?  If so, who becomes President?  If Obama’s 2008 election was invalid, it seems that Joe Biden’s election as Vice President would also be invalid.   Next in line would be House Speaker John Boehner.

If John Boehner assumes the presidency, would the GOP nominate him as the 2012 candidate?  Boehner isn’t ready to retire.  Why would he want to give up the Speakership in order to be President for a few months.  Would Boehner appoint Mitt Romney as Vice President?  Would the Senate confirm Romney?  Would Romney accept the job?

Would Boehner pardon Obama?

Who do the Democrats nominate for President?  Biden?  The party never warmed to him as a presidential candidate in his multiple tries.  Hillary Clinton?  John Kerry?  Al Gore?  Jesse Jackson?  Al Sharpton?  Keith Ellison (a real American Muslim)? Cory Booker?  Dennis Kucinich?

What happens to all the laws, executive orders and appointments that Obama signed?  Is ObamaCare the law?  Are Sonya Sotomayor and Eleana Kagan Supreme Court Justices?  Did Sandra Fluke really need all of that birth control?

Obama hasn’t signed a budget sinced he’s been President, but is the debt ceiling valid?  Is all of that debt backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America?

Would Obama owe the U.S. Treasury his salary, rent on the White House?  Would he have to reimburse the Treasury for his security and vacations?   Does he has to reimburse all his donors from the 2008 and 2012 campaigns?

I can understand why Judges would look for procedural or jurisdictional grounds not to hear such a case.

What would be better for the country?  To pursue the issues raised by the Objectors or look the other way?

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Star Ledger Editor Tom Moran Calls Conservatives Racist

The Star Ledger’s Tom Moran is back to his old tricks of using the race card while attempting to advance his political agenda.

In early 2010, shortly after Governor Chris Christie took office, Moran tried to derail the Christie administration by teaming up with Assembly Speaker Shelia Oliver to call Christie and his team “…white men, most of them political neophytes…” who never rode a bus and couldn’t understand how their deeply their economic policies were impacting “working poor families.” 

Moran did that before he realized that Christie is a “force of nature who could probably make a dog sing if he put his mind to it.”

In a column posted on Tuesday that defends the President’s constitutional pronouncements about the Supreme Court’s right to overturn ObamaCare Moran employed Jeanane Garofalo’s tactic of accusing Obama’s critics of being racist.

Because Moran is smarter and prettier, his accusation is sublter than Garofalo’s crude remarks, yet it is no less offensive:

Obama went on to make an important point: That if the court overrules the health care law, it will be practicing judicial activism. Conservatives have been complaining about judicial activism since the Supreme Court struck down Jim Crow segregation laws in the South, and the heat rose considerably after Roe v. Wade.

Maybe fellow Star Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine can explain the difference between judicial activistism and constructionism to Moran.

Activistism is when a Court finds, invents or redefines a constitutional provision in order to make new law that is consistent with its political or ideological preference.  That is what the U.S. Supreme Court did in Roe v Wade and what the NJ Supreme Court did in the Abbott decisions.

Constructionism is what a court does when it decides that the legislative or executive branches exceeded the power granted to them in the Constitution, like mandating people buy something they don’t want.

Moran, like Obama, probably knows the difference.  Also like Obama, he probably just doesn’t think the Constitution is that important.  That’s OK for Moran who hasn’t sworn to protect and defend the Constitution.  It’s not OK for the President who has sworn that oath.

The race card worked well for liberals in 2008.  The invoked it successfully to mute Obama’s poltical opponents in the Democratic primary and during the general election.  They appealed to ‘white guilt” to get Obama elected.  It was a disgusting and effective strategy.

But the race card is played out. It didn’t work in the politicization of the Trayvon Martin tragedy.  It didn’t work when Garofalo played it.  It didn’t work in 2010.

Moran should stop playing the race card.  Conservative opposition to ObamaCare has nothing to do with the Jim Crow laws, just as Governor Christie’s economic policies have nothing to do with how many of his cabinet members and staffers have ever ridden a bus.

Moran’s job is the inform, educate and persuade.   He should leave the obfuscation to politicians, activists and B-rate entertainers looking for their next gig.

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