In the wake of the recent oral arguments to the Supreme Court, politicians with stakes on both sides of the issue have exercised their liberty to open their mouths about it. With matters that are complex enough to necessitate Supreme Court intervention, politicians would have been well served to exercise restraint. As the saying goes, better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.
POTUS seemed to lob the first grenade in this nonsensical war of words with the following disposition of his genius.
“I am confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically-elected congress” Gee, I don’t know Barry, but maybe a clue exists in the cases of Marbury v. Madison, McCullough v. Maryland, Gibbons v. Ogden. In all of these cases the high court determined that Congressional or State Legislature actions were either appropriate or inappropriate under the powers granted to them by the Constitution. Judicial review? Ever heard of it? Just because the majority of a democratically elected Congress voted that we should all covert to Buddahism, does not mean that the court is going to allow such a law to stand.
I believe that Barry attended and graduated from Harvard Law School, even though I have not seen any official transcripts, BUT, my question would be whether or not he passed Constitutional Law after a comment like that. The popularity of the law, or the strength of the majority on the vote have no bearing on the grant, or lack thereof, of power to Congress, in the Constitution. I get that he is confused when he is losing on an issue, and is not very good on his feet, but these recent comments sound much like, “Oh yeah, I know I am but what are you?!” Genius. Articulate. Our POTUS.
Then, we have Mitt Romney being questioned about the comments of the President and we get this gem.
“So judicial activism is not following the Constitution. Judicial activism is departing from the Constitution”
Giving Mitt one tiny break, you can not impart a meaningful explanation of the concept of “judicial activism” in a one liner. When we have Obama jumping up and down crying “judicial activism” you can’t merely say, “judicial activism is not following the Constitution”. He could have said, the court will do what it has always done, and strike down laws that are not constitutional. That is their job, it is what we want them to do. He seems stunned by the question and ill prepared to address it. His retort sounds as childish as the comments from Barry and is tantamount to “Yeah, well come over here and say that!”.
Mitt, I understand, also received a Juris Doctor from Harvard, and I’m pretty sure it’s not one of those online law schools.
Judicial activism, is not like super-twins-powers-activate!, that you get all power and unsuspected, otherwise humanly impossible victory for your team whenever it is invoked or granted to your side. It is a criticism of the judiciary that they are allegedly utilizing and relying upon their own personal biases and politics when they are interpreting an issue of First Impression, which is that it has never been addressed before. Judicial activism then, is the battle cry of the whiners on losing side. Not unlike complaining about how blind the Umpire was at your kids Little League game.
When it comes to the Supreme Court, somebody is always unhappy, somebody leaves the building a loser, and somebody cries “injustice”, and yes, someone raves”judicial activism”. It just ain’t fair. It is the way the system works, and works pretty effectively. This utter lack of reverence and political demonizing of this branch is something that should be offensive to us all.
I have seen several comments questioning that if the court can be “activist” on Roe v. Wade, then why not be “activist” on overturning the PPACA (Aka Obamacare). THIS is the most illiterate and incomprehensible of all the dumb comments so far.
Roe, whether you like it or not, is a case protecting fundamental rights of individuals, primarily under the 14th Amendment. The focus is the individual and the protection afforded to all of us within the 14th Amendment. The PPACA case involves the POWER of Congress to do what it has done. This legislation is so breathtakingly broad, it is difficult to even start to describe the plethora of overstepping the powers of Congress that has gone on here. Just on its face, it compels businesses to provide health insurance coverage for employees, compels individuals to purchase health care coverage, and compels the same insurance companies to provide insurance to those whom they might otherwise not wish to have as clients. I don’t care at all about how “human” Obama wants to characterize this, Congress can not go around dictating who will do business and contract with whom, and dictating what we will purchase. While we get mired in whether Congress had the POWER to do ANY of this, we don’t even get to the question of the First Amendment Rights to Association that my be impacted by the various “mandates”. Breathtakingly broad. There is no other way to describe this abomination. In both cases, the court is the last vestige of defense and the one thing that protects the individual by curtailing the government.
Congress has overstepped and abused its powers. It is really that simple, and that complicated. It likely goes down, but Barry is obviously nervous, and he is the consummate campaigner. Sorry, the Supremes don’t work that way and their lifetime tenure make them generally immune (hopefully) from such public relations games by the Great Campaigner. As officers of the court, as elected officials, do these politicians not have the job to instill CONFIDENCE in the court? Please, all of you verbose campaigners, stop scapegoating the most distinguished branch or our government with your sore loser rhetoric. An ounce of respect and dignity for the branch that is literally our last defense against this kind of government infringement, socialism and tyranny, and all sorts of invasions of our rights and privacies.
Obamacare will likely be overturned because it is bad law, and it is the JOB of the Supreme Court, to overturn bad laws that violate the constitution.
Mitt, you can use that next time someone asks you.
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