He's "confident it should be upheld"

[sirs]

...because, the constitutional teacher and chief, said so.  Even said his prized non-racist 2700page gorilla in the room piece of unconstitutional legislative garbage was passed "by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress

Riiiiiiiiight

- Thirty-four Democrats in the House voted against Obamacare.
- No Republicans voted for it.
- It was passed in the Senate on Christmas Eve 2009 by a vote of 60-39, and used a budget reconciliation tactic, with no serious allowance of time for it to be not just vetted, but even read

"We have to pass it, in order to see what's in it" belowed Pelosi.  Guess what nancy?...you passed a piece of unconstitutional load of crap....just because you could......and simply expected everyone else to bow to you and Obama's powers of "you just know better".  Sorry, that might work in Russia, or even China, but not in America

[sirs]

"I'm confident that 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."

"Unprecedented"? Judicial review has been the centerpiece of the American constitutional system since Marbury v. Madison in 1803. "Strong majority"? The House has 435 members. In March 2010, Democrats held a 75-seat majority. Obamacare passed by seven votes.

In his next-day walk back, the president implied that he was merely talking about the normal "restraint and deference" the courts owe the legislative branch. This concern would be touching if it weren't coming from the leader of a party so deeply devoted to the ultimate judicial usurpation – Roe v. Wade, which struck down the abortion laws of 46 states – that fealty to it is the party's litmus test for service on the Supreme Court. With Obamacare remaking one-sixth of the economy, it would be unusual for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation so broad and sweeping. On the other hand, it is far more unusual to pass such a fundamentally transformative law on such a narrow, partisan basis.

Obamacare passed the Congress without a single vote from the opposition party – in contradistinction to Social Security, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, similarly grand legislation, all of which enjoyed substantial bipartisan support.

In the Senate, moreover, Obamacare squeaked by through a parliamentary maneuver called reconciliation that was never intended for anything so sweeping. The fundamental deviation from custom and practice is not the legal challenge to Obamacare but the very manner of its enactment.

The president's pre-emptive attack on the court was in direct reaction to Obamacare's three days of oral argument. It was a shock. After years of contemptuously dismissing the very idea of a legal challenge, Democrats suddenly realized there actually is a serious constitutional argument to be made against Obamacare – and they are losing it.

Here were highly sophisticated conservative thinkers – lawyers and justices – making the case for limited government, and liberals weren't even prepared for the obvious constitutional question: If Congress can force the individual into a private contract by authority of the Commerce Clause, what can it not force the individual to do? Without a limiting principle, the central premise of our constitutional system – a government of enumerated powers – evaporates. What then is the limiting principle?

Liberals were quick to blame the administration's bumbling solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, for blowing the answer. But Clarence Darrow couldn't have given it. There is none.

Justice Stephen Breyer tried to rescue the hapless Verrilli by suggesting that by virtue of being born, one enters into the "market for health care." To which plaintiffs' lawyer Michael Carvin devastatingly replied: If birth means entering the market, the Congress is omnipotent, authorized by the Commerce Clause to regulate "every human activity from cradle to grave."

Having lost the argument, what to do? Bully.

The New York Times loftily warned the Supreme Court that it would forfeit its legitimacy if it ruled against Obamacare because with the "five Republican-appointed justices supporting the challenge led by 26 Republican governors, the court will mark itself as driven by politics."

Really? The administration's case for the constitutionality of Obamacare was so thoroughly demolished in oral argument that one liberal observer called it "a train wreck." It is perfectly natural, therefore, that a majority of the court should side with the argument that had so clearly prevailed on its merits. That's not partisanship. That's logic.

Partisanship is four Democrat-appointed justices giving lockstep support to a law passed by a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president – after the case for its constitutionality had been reduced to rubble.

Democrats are reeling. Obama was so taken aback, he hasn't even drawn up contingency plans should his cherished reform be struck down. Liberals still cannot grasp what's happened – the mild revival of constitutionalism in a country they've grown so used to ordering about regardless. When asked about Obamacare's constitutionality, Nancy Pelosi famously replied: "Are you serious?" She was genuinely puzzled.

As was Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill. As Michael Barone notes, when Hare was similarly challenged at a 2010 town hall, he replied: "I don't worry about the Constituction."

Hare is now retired, having been shortly thereafter defeated for re-election by the more constitutionally attuned owner of an East Moline pizza shop.

Here's hoping our Commander and Community Organizer will follow-suit after Nov, in his new line of work

[sirs]

Obama’s top attorney tells the court, “Nevermind.”

When our president, a, ahem, constitutional scholar, berated the court for having the audacity to consider overturning an unconstitutional law,  he implied justices should think twice before doing such an unprecedented thing.

Of course, Barack Obama was revealing himself to be anything but a constitutional scholar.

A mere appellate court judge got so miffed he ordered the Obama Administration to submit a three-page, single-spaced paper today explaining how judicial review is something the court has the authority to do.

So, Eric Holder, who currently holds the position of Attorney General in the admnistration, submitted the letter.

Here’s what Holder had to say: “The power of the courts to review the constitutionality of legislation is beyond dispute.”

Go figure. Beyond dispute.

So, what’s going on with Obama?

Is he really as ignorant as his statement would appear? Will he fire Holder for contradicting him? Is he trying to intimidate the justices into upholding his unconstitutional Obamacare?

More likely, he’s playing politics, hoping to whip up fury among the faithful whose votes  he desperately needs in November in order to keep up the charade another four years.

Commentary

[sirs]

Supposed "smartest" President we've ever had

We are often reminded that President Obama is the smartest man ever to occupy the White House. That’s how Prof. Michael Beschloss, presidential historian, described him. Of course, Mr. Obama was editor of Harvard Law Review. Most of all, we are informed regularly that Barack Obama taught constitutional law at University of Chicago. That’s no mean accomplishment.

So, it’s really curious how Professor Obama defines constitutional issues.

Last week, he told a Rose Garden audience that the U.S. Supreme Court would be engaging in “judicial activism” if it rules his health care takeover unconstitutional.

That’s because, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed by what Mr. Obama calls a “strong majority” of elected Members of Congress.

Actually, there were a critical few members of that U.S. Senate who were not elected.
Sen. Roland Burris of Illinois (D) was then temporarily occupying the seat Sen. Obama had vacated. Burris was put in that seat by Illinois’ Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) who is now on his way to prison for corruption related to that appointment.
Sen. Ted Kaufman of Delaware (D) was appointed, not elected, to fill Joe Biden’s seat, as he stepped into the vice presidential chair.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York (D) was appointed, not elected, to fill the seat of Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. Gillibrand was appointed by New York’s Gov. David Patterson (D).
Then, there was Colorado’s Sen. Michael Bennet (D), who was appointed to serve the unexpired term of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (D).

I have not yet consulted the Senate historian, but since this landmark legislation was passed by the narrowest of partisan majorities—with not a single Republican voting for it—and since at least four of the must-have votes came from appointed U.S. Senators—it sure seems odd to characterize the legislation has having been passed by a “strong majority” of elected representatives of the people.

In the House of Representatives, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to go down the chimney, up through the sewers, and around the bend, if necessary, to jam the health care bill through. But jam it she did. That is why the then-Speaker is not the now-Speaker. Even so, the vote in the House was squeakingly close: 219-212.

Some “strong majority.”

Now, suppose Prof. Obama, you could pass a bill through a Democratic-controlled House by a vote of 342-67, with 219 Republicans and 120 Democrats backing it? Suppose, further, that you got your legislation through the Democratic Senate on a vote of 85-14, with all Republicans backing it and only 14 Democrats opposed? Suppose, further, that that bill had been signed in 1996 by a Democratic president.

I’d call that Act one that was passed with “a strong majority of elected representatives of the people.” After all, that legislation passed both houses of Congress with veto-proof majorities.

But Professor Obama does not even call the Defense of Marriage Act constitutional. Despite its overwhelming passage, Obama calls this act unconstitutional. And he sent his Justice Department into federal court to get it overturned. Meanwhile, without succeeding in that bid, he refuses to defend or enforce a law of Congress.

By his own standards, Prof. Obama’s health care takeover, received a down-to-the-wire passage on the narrowest of partisan bases. It relied on the votes of unelected senators (not to mention highly dubious Cornhusker Kickbacks and a second Louisiana Purchase). By any measure, it was a questionable measure.

If only Barack Obama were to apply his own brave Rose Garden words to the Defense of Marriage Act. If only he would treat this vital legislation the same way he treats his healthcare takeover. He would then be in front of the Supreme Court dramatically defending DOMA himself.

That lopsided Senate vote (85-14) on the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 contains many ironies. Not the least of these is the fact that the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) was one of those misguided few who voted no.

Moynihan’s “no” vote on true marriage was especially tragic given his special sensitivity to the importance of marriage in the black community. Thirty years earlier, young Pat Moynihan had raised an alarm about the breakdown of marriage in his seminal Report on the Negro Family. The out-of-wedlock birthrate for black children in 1965 was then just 22%. Young Pat Moynihan saw this as dangerous. Today, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for the whole nation is 42%.

Young Pat Moynihan was right. Today’s Barack Obama is wrong. If we care about poverty, income mobility, health, education, and welfare, we need to support true marriage. Barack Obama is the most anti-marriage president in our history. Combined with Pat Moynihan’s falling away, that is a double tragedy.

Professor Obama would likely flunk his own course