SCOTUSCare

From Scalia's dissent in his newly coined SCOTUSCare decision:

• Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is “established by the State.” It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words “established by the State.” And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words “by the State” other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges.
• Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 3 SCALIA, J., dissenting yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.
• The Court interprets §36B to award tax credits on both federal and state Exchanges. It accepts that the “most natural sense” of the phrase “Exchange established by the State” is an Exchange established by a State. Ante, at 11. (Understatement, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act!) Yet the opinion continues, with no semblance of shame, that “it is also possible that the phrase refers to all Exchanges—both State and Federal.”
• Today’s interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of. Who would ever have dreamt that “Exchange established by the State” means “Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government”?
• It is bad enough for a court to cross out “by the State” once. But seven times?
• But this Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites. I dissent.

It is why judges matter. No more gestures like renominating Judge Gregory on the 4th.  No more John Roberts. The left does not make these mistakes. Judicial nominations are one of the most important issues in 2016.

Bogus War on Women

Once again, women are deemed victims of the evil Supreme Court, which just denied women "health care" in the form of "free" birth control. Once again, liberals are propagating this ridiculous lie, and women are falling for it, bemoaning that their access to their life-saving IUDs have been slashed.

Hogwash.

The WSJ sums up the series of lies very succinctly:

All this crocodile outrage is wonderfully fact-free. The High Court majority granted that women's health is a compelling state interest but that the White House's means were illegal under RFRA. The opinion is largely irrelevant in practice to contraceptive "access," which will remain cheap and abundant. The Institute of Medicine reports that contraceptive benefits are "standard practice for most private insurance" and that 89% of plans cover all 20 FDA-approved methods. Hobby Lobby only disapproves of four methods, and few companies would claim the religious convictions to bar even those.

Democrats also fail to mention that the health plans of about 190 million people were already absolved from the mandate before Monday's ruling, either because they work for exempt businesses with 50 workers or fewer or as a result of the Obama Administration's "accommodation" for religious nonprofits. That arrangement is a creature of bureaucratic discretion, not statute, and thus could be expanded to companies like Hobby Lobby without Congress if Mr. Obama honestly thinks the female body is at risk.

Oh, and I don't want my president telling me what my bosses should cover. I choose who to work for, and I make that bargain with them as to what they can cover. Right?

Here's White House press secretary Josh Earnest : "President Obama believes that women should make personal health-care decisions for themselves rather than their bosses deciding for them. . . . The constitutional lawyer in the Oval Office disagrees with that conclusion." This appeal to diploma is weird, because Hobby Lobby turned on the straightforward application of a federal statute. The First Amendment's free-exercise clause wasn't reached.

 Don't even get me started on Hillary's histrionics:

"a disturbing trend that you see in a lot of societies that are very unstable, anti-democratic and frankly prone to extremism," which is "women and girls being deprived of their rights," including "control over their bodies," she said this week.

Does she really believe that "depriving" women of four forms of abortificients is going to turn us into Afghanistan or something far worse? Are we not North Korea?

Get a grip, America. The world didn't end. You can still have promiscuous sex, and someone will still pay for it. (Ultimately, you, the tax payer and insuree,but hey, that's another argument.)

Sebelius Hearings

These Sebelius hearings are a riot. Sebelius: "The website never crashed. It is functional at a very low speed."

Obamcare.gov right now: "The system is down at the moment."

Hmm, so technically a downed website has never crashed. It depends on the meaning of the word "never" I suppose. Or "crashed."

I guess Obamacare.gov can't be described as a trainwreck if it has never "crashed."

Obamacare Fail

Well, that was unexpected this morning, wasn't it? That the commerce clause argument did succeed; it was not constitutional. But it is a tax. A tax despite Obama saying it was not a tax increase, the legislation using the word "penalty."  And it was not Kennedy that defected, but the Chief Justice. Wow, John Roberts.

Now that there has been a few hours to absorb the decision, a few people questions. Can this be a new Marbury v. Madison?  How much is Congress thwarted going forward under the Commerce Clause?  Was Justice Ginsburg outlining another constitutional challenge to the mandate--if religious liberties questions were violated?  Was the dissent originally the majority? 

And most imortantly, what will happen in November? I gave my first presidential donation today to Romney. Repeal is the only answer.

I will leave you with the Scalia/Kennedy/et. al. dissent:

Whatever may be the conceptual limits upon the Commerce Clause and upon the power to tax and spend, they cannot be such as will enable the Federal Government to regulate all private conduct and to compel the States to function as administrators of federal programs. That clear principle carries the day here.

Obamacare

Today, the Supreme Court held oral arguments in the Obamacare suit regarding the individual mandate. Jeff Toobin thinks it will be struck down. A "train wreck" indeed. We shall see in late June.