Tag Archives: U.S. Supreme Court

medical news, national news, political news

Listen to one of your own, GOP, on 'Obamacare'

Brent Budowsky is singing Karl Rove’s praises.

And why not? Budowsky is an economist of some repute and is a former aide to the late, great U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas. He thinks Rove — aka “Bush’s Brain” — is spot on in telling his fellow Republicans to give their futile effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

It’s a loser. Any remote chance the GOP has of tossing the ACA aside is going to cost them dearly, especially when — in Budowsky’s eyes — the first person dies because he or she is denied affordable health insurance because Republicans have won their fight to repeal the ACA.

Karl Rove surrenders to ObamaCare

And why should the GOP high command listen to Rove?

Easy. The man’s a brilliant political strategist.

He helped engineer George W. Bush’s winning campaigns for Texas governor (in 1994) and two successful races for the presidency (in 2000 and 2004). The governor’s race should have been in the bag for the incumbent, the late Democrat Ann Richards. Rove came up with a strategy that held Bush to a tightly scripted line of specific issues and reforms he would enact if elected governor. He never veered off the script as he went on to defeat Richards.

The man knows a winning political cause and a losing cause as well as anyone.

As Budowsky writes in The Hill: “Rove’s surrender to ObamaCare, advising Republicans against pretending they would repeal ObamaCare, is politically very wise. Rove’s fear about what happens to Republicans if the court does overturn ObamaCare provisions and the world witnesses horror stories of Americans being hurt because of Republican anti-ObamaCare politics — without any Republican policy to undo the damage — is politically brilliant.

“Imagine daily stories on television about very ill Americans being stripped of healthcare, about children losing their insurance because they would no longer be covered by their parent’s policies, about Americans with preexisting conditions being thrown to the insurance wolves without ObamaCare, and about huge insurance premium increases that would punish many millions of Americans because of the Republican war against ObamaCare.”

Budowsky also predicts that the Supreme Court is going to uphold the ACA when it rules on its constitutionality before the end of the court’s current term.

Pay attention. Karl Rove might not be every American’s favorite operative/pundit/talking head. Howeve, he is wise to counsel his fellow Republicans to give up a fight they’re certain to lose.

 

legal news

Conservatives show quick trigger fingers

You have to hand it to conservative political leaders, who demonstrate time and again how quick they are to seize an initiative and outflank their liberal foes.

Take the call by religious leaders for liberal U.S. Supreme Court justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to recuse themselves from an upcoming hearing on same-sex marriage.

http://thehill.com/regulation/240163-religious-leaders-want-justices-restrained-from-ruling-on-same-sex-marriage

They contend that Kagan and Ginsburg have put their personal views on the subject above the U.S. Constitution and thus have surrendered their moral authority to decide on this issue.

Is there a more impractical demand than this?

It wouldn’t fly any more than some liberal political interest — say, the American Civil Liberties Union — demanding that conservative justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas recuse themselves because of their often-stated bias against same-sex marriage.

The court is going to hear a case, Obergefell v. Hodges, involving same-sex marriage bans in four states — Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky. The justices might rule that states cannot supersede the U.S. Constitution that guarantees citizens the right to equal protection under the law; or, they might rule that states have that authority.

It should be decided, quite naturally, by the full court comprising liberals, conservatives and swing justices, such as Anthony Kennedy and, possibly, Chief Justice John Roberts.

Still, the hair-trigger response by faith leaders demanding the recusal by liberal justices offers a lesson in how to make a quick-strike political demand.

They’ve honed the strategy almost to an art form.

 

legal news

Gay marriage to get big test

The U.S. Supreme Court is going to decide soon whether Americans have a constitutional right to marry someone of the same sex.

My guess is that if the conservative court majority is as “strict constructionist” as its members claim to be, the issue could be a slam dunk.

They’ll declare a ban on same-sex marriage to be in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

State courts and lower federal courts have been striking down state bans left and right. Texas’s own ban is among those that the courts have ruled violated someone’s constitutional rights.

The issue, as I see it, rests within the 14th Amendment, which guarantees Americans the right to “equal protection” under the law. It doesn’t specify that citizens need to be of a certain sexual orientation.

State bans have flouted, in my view, that constitutional guarantee. That is why the federal courts have stepped in.

So, the highest court in the land is set to decide this issue.

I remain perplexed by the notion of calling same-sex unions “marriage.” But that’s just me. I do not question the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.

Neither should the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

legal news, State news

Let's define 'Southern heritage'

The Sons of the Confederate Veterans are going to have a steep hill to climb in defending a flag that one time symbolized an act of treason.

Many of us out here will be all ears.

At issue is an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court over Texas’s refusal to allow the display of the Confederate flag on motor vehicle license plates. The state says the design is offensive to millions of Texans, as it reminds them of the Confederacy’s declaration of war against the United States of America. And, yes, slavery was one of the issues that brought about the Civil War.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans say the flag merely depicts “Southern heritage.”

Really?

Does that “heritage” include the Confederate States of America going to war with the United States? Does it mean we should honor the effort of a collection of Southern states that sought to split the United States apart? Do we honor the war that killed roughly 600,000 Americans — Southerners and Northerners — on battlefields throughout the nation?

And do we honor “Southern heritage” by displaying a flag that symbolizes modern-day hate groups who’ve committed horrifying acts of barbarism and cruelty against African-Americans?

I want the Supreme Court justices to ask the Sons of Confederate Veterans legal team questions that deal with some of these issues.

 

legal news, State news

Supreme Court to hear Confederate plate case

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This is going to be an interesting case headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans think Texas license plates should carry a design that includes the Confederate flag. Millions of Texans are on their side. Millions of other Texans — as yours truly — think the design is offensive in the extreme.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/03/21/supreme-court-consider-confederate-license-plates/

The state Department of Motor Vehicles has denied the design, citing a state law that says it can deny a specialty plate “if the design might be offensive to any member of the public.” Former Gov. Rick Perry opposed the design, citing its offensiveness to millions of Texans.

Cut-and-dried, yes? Hardly.

The Sons of the Confederacy think a denial deprives the organization of freedom of speech.

Here’s how the Texas Tribune reported the sequence of events: “The group challenged the DMV’s decision in federal court, but a district judge upheld the state’s decision to restrict what it determined to be offensive content. The Sons of Confederate Veterans appealed to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the lower court’s decision. The court said the DMV had unlawfully discriminated against the Confederate group’s beliefs that the flag was a symbol of Southern heritage in favor of those who were offended by it.”

Southern heritage? I suppose it does represent one element of Southern heritage. That segment happens to include a Civil War that killed 600,000 Americans, a war that was fought over the South’s contention that states had the right to do certain things — such as sanction slavery.

The Confederate flag in the 150-plus years since the end of the Civil War has become a symbol of hate groups who fly the flag proudly whenever they’re protesting issues, such as granting all Americans — including African-American — the right to vote.

The symbol is offensive and should not adorn motor vehicle license plates.

I just hope the Supreme Court sees it that way, too.

 

entertainment news, legal news

Great work, judge, if you can get it

This thought didn’t originate with me. It comes from my friend Jon Mark Beilue, a columnist for the Amarillo Globe-News, who took note of something he saw.

I’m passing it along here.

It is that Judy Scheindlin, aka Judge Judy, I going to rake in tens of millions of dollars annually dispensing “justice” on television.

http://www.tvguide.com/news/judge-judy-contract-2020/

Judge Judy has been given a contract extension that will pay her an undisclosed amount of money through 2020. If history is a guide, it’s going to be for lots and lots of money.

Her Honor earned $47 million in 2014.

As Jon Mark noted in his social media post, the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts, earns about $225,000 annually. All he and his eight colleagues on the highest court in the land do for a living is determine whether federal laws comport with the U.S. Constitution. They get to decide things like, oh, the fate of the Affordable Care Act, whether someone deserves to be executed for crimes they commit or whether abortion remains legal.

Judge Judy? She gets to scold people for not making good on fender-bender accident claims, or shaving their neighbor’s pet dog or cat, or absconding with a refrigerator load of food. It’s that kind of thing that Judge Judy gets to hear.

For that she earns millions.

As Jon Mark noted: Only in America …

 

legal news, State news

Immigration seas are roiling yet again

The political water under the immigration issue keeps tossing and turning to the point that it’s making me queasy.

The latest wave to crash against the immigration vessel came from the Southern Federal Judicial District of Texas and U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who late Sunday said President Obama’s executive action delaying deportation of illegal immigrants violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the way federal regulations are set up and how much public input is delivered.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/02/16/executive-action-immigration-ruling/

The Obama administration plans to appeal, most likely to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton hailed the judge’s ruling, saying it validates their contention that the feds reached beyond their grasp in delaying the deportation of illegal immigrants, about 1.46 million of whom live in Texas.

“President Obama abdicated his responsibility to uphold the United States Constitution when he attempted to circumvent the laws passed by Congress via executive fiat,” Abbott said in a statement, “and Judge Hanen’s decision rightly stops the President’s overreach in its tracks.”

Paxton agrees with the governor. “This decision is a victory for the rule of law in America and a crucial first step in reining in President Obama’s lawlessness,” he said in a statement. “This injunction makes it clear that the President is not a law unto himself, and must work with our elected leaders in Congress and satisfy the courts in a fashion our Founding Fathers envisioned.”

Did politics play a part in this federal judge’s decision? Judge Hanen was appointed by President George W. Bush and already is on record as suggesting the Department of Homeland Security was breaking immigration law by allowing undocumented immigrant children to be reunited with their parents rather than deporting or arresting them, according to the Texas Tribune.

Let’s wait, then, for progressives to bemoan the actions of an “unelected activist judge” who places himself above the law. I’m betting we won’t hear such an argument coming from that side of the aisle.

Something tells me the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to get this one.

In the meantime, pass the Dramamine.

 

legal news, national news

Alabama's Roy Moore: judicial activist

Judicial activism is alive and well on one state’s bench, and it’s not a state where one would expect to find such a thing.

It’s in Alabama, where the chief justice of that state’s Supreme Court, has decided that the Highest Court in the Land — the United States Supreme Court — declined to overturn a lower federal court ruling that overturned the state’s ban on people marrying others of the same gender.

The high court, then, in effect endorsed the lower court ruling. The state’s ban on same-sex marriage is overturned, along with bans in 38 other states — including Texas.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/02/10/alabama-supreme-court-gay-marriage-editorials-debates/23200975/

As USA Today notes in an editorial, same-sex marriage has become as divisive an issue as the civil rights battles were in the 1950s and ’60s. Most Americans support same-sex marriage now, although in the Deep South, opponents of it remain in the majority.

Still, the entire nation is governed by a single Constitution and the federal courts are empowered to interpret that document in the manner they deem appropriate.

Federal judges have been striking down the bans generally on the grounds that they violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the one that guarantees “equal protection” for all citizens under the law.

Justice Moore, though, doesn’t see it that way, even though he swore an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Don’t conservatives oppose judicial activism? Don’t they rail continually at judges who put their own bias above the law?

Alabama’s top state judge is on the wrong side of this issue. Period.

 

 

 

Uncategorized

SCOTUS slaps down women's health concern

I’ll try to figure out what the Supreme Court said Monday in that much-anticipated Hobby Lobby health care case.

The court ruled 5-4 that family owned businesses, such as Hobby Lobby, can exempt contraception coverage for women who work for the company under the Affordable Care Act.

So, let’s see if I have this right: If a female employee of Hobby Lobby wants to prevent a pregnancy through contraception, she is unable to apply for insurance under the Affordable Care Act because, again as I understand it, her employer disagrees with the policy on religious grounds.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/supreme-court-hobby-lobby-decision-obamacare-108435.html?hp=f2

The employee, therefore, is denied coverage because of her employer’s devotion to his or her faith.

I have to agree with critics of the ruling. Women, they say, have seen their health care put in jeopardy because of a narrow court ruling that applies only to contraception.

Let the firestorm rage all over again.

Hobby Lobby is a fine company. My wife and I shop there on occasion for picture frames and Christmas decorations. It’s also owned by a devote Christian family. I honor their faith as well.

What is troubling is the denial of contraceptives under the ACA and why it’s such a bogeyman in the eyes of Hobby Lobby.

Here’s how Politico reported it: “The contraception coverage mandate isn’t central to the law, the way the individual mandate is. By letting some closely held employers — like family-owned businesses — opt out of the coverage if they have religious objections, the justices haven’t blown a hole in the law that unravels its ability to cover millions of Americans. They didn’t even overturn the contraception coverage rule itself. They just carved out an exemption for some employers from one benefit, one that wasn’t even spelled out when the law was passed.”

The ruling along those true-blue political lines: the five conservative justices outvoting the four liberal ones. Well, that’s the way it goes. I accept the ruling as legit, as opposed to some on the right who two years ago raised holy hell when the court voted, also 5-4, to uphold the ACA.

I accept the ruling. I surely don’t agree with it. I believe a privately held company owner has been given license to stand in the way of a woman’s health care needs on grounds that have little to do with, oh, health care.

Uncategorized

Judicial independence bites Obama

Barack Obama has just gotten a taste of what many of his presidential predecessors have had to swallow as it regards federal judicial appointments.

Their court appointments didn’t vote nearly the way their benefactor — the president — wanted them to vote.

That, I submit, speaks quite eloquently to the need to keep the federal judiciary independent.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-27/obama-goes-too-far-for-even-supreme-court-liberals

In two 9-0 rulings in recent days, the court struck down a Massachusetts law that regulated anti-abortion protesters and then it reeled in presidential appointment powers relating to recess appointments made when the Senate is not in session.

That means both of President Obama’s high court picks — Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — voted against the wishes of the man who nominated them to their dream job in the first place.

We hear yammering — mostly from the right wing of the political spectrum — that “unelected judges” wield too much power. This carping comes usually when the court rules against a cause or principle near and dear to conservatives’ hearts.

Indeed, the court has comprised many Republican appointees who’ve gone against the wishes of their presidential benefactors: Dwight Eisenhower picked Earl Warren to be chief justice and all Warren did was launch the Supreme Court on a whole range of landmark liberal court rulings, starting with the 1954 school desegregation ruling known as Brown v. the Board of Education.

Harry Blackmum (picked by Richard Nixon) wrote the Roe v. Wade abortion decision; John Paul Stevens (Gerald Ford) became a staunch liberal court member; Byron White (John Kennedy) voted “no” on Roe v. Wade; John Roberts (George W. Bush) voted with the majority to uphold the Affordable Care Act.

Now two of the court’s liberal justices — Kagan and Sotomayor — have joined their fellow liberals and conservatives on the court to stick it in President Obama’s eye on a couple of key issues.

So, let’s stop the griping about the federal court system. The founders set up an independent branch of government for a reason, which was to prevent its politicization when trying to interpret the U.S. Constitution.