Some of the Supreme Court appear skeptical of the claim that, if they strike down the individual mandate provision, they must strike down the entirety of the Act. Early accounts of the justices from the courtroom appeared to be favoring severability but new reports have cast doubt — yet another example how artificial the denial of cameras and live coverage has become. As the argument unfolded, conservative justices appear to suggest that it really is an all-or-nothing proposition.
Category: Constitutional Law
It appears that the Supreme Court justices did not hear about the results of the GW Supreme Court deliberations. Key conservative justices expressed notably skepticism about the constitutionality of the health care law. The statements of Roberts and Kennedy are particularly interesting. I will also note that the continued refusal of these justices to allow cameras into the courtroom is indefensible and insulting. The fact that millions of Americans have to wait for individuals to offer second-hand accounts is a ridiculous exercise that, I believe, would have been viewed as positively moronic by the Framers.
As I mentioned on Countdown last night, my Supreme Court class (which reviews the leading cases of the term and deliberates as an alternative Supreme Court) ruled on the constitutional challenge over the individual mandate provision (we will be considering the other issues in a separate class). The class ruled 12 to 2 to reverse the 11th Circuit and uphold the health care law. The class also voted on the ethical question of Kagan’s recusal as well as their prediction of what that other Court would do. The associate justices were not sway by the stated concerns of the Chief Justice (here and here) over the future of federalism if the Act is constitutional.
This week, the Supreme Court will take up its historic three-day consideration of the health care law. My Supreme Court class will be spending two weeks on the four insular issues before the Court, including the question of federalism.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Stony Brook University (SBU), in an effort to “maximum instruction for students in the most efficient and effective manner,” will no longer cancel classes on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and will not include Good Friday and Passover in their spring break. The American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) has sent a letter to Dr. Samuel L. Stanley, Jr., President of SBU, threatening noting that ACLJ attorneys have argued before the Supreme Court.
Continue reading “Stony Brook Calendar Changes Trample On Religious Privilege”
The House of Representatives has passed a controversial tort reform bill that contains serious flaws that would limit recovery of people harmed or kill by acts of malpractice. H.R. 5, the “Protecting Access to Healthcare Act” would impose a cap of $250,000 that would severely cut the damages of victims and make it far more difficult for such victims to secure contingency counsel. THe bill passed 223 to 181 with seven Democrats joining Republicans to pass the bill.
Continue reading “House Passes Tort “Reform” Measure That Would Slash Recovery By Medical Malpractice Victims”
We have previously discusses alarming moves in France to limit or deny speech through blasphemy prosecutions to hate speech to barring “antihistorical” speech. Now, in the wake of the recent killings by a Muslim extremist, the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy is proposing a new law that would jail repeat visitors to extremist web sites. It is a measure that strips away core free speech rights of citizens and gives the government a new ambiguous power to arrest people for the things that they read.
Continue reading “Sarkozy Proposes To Arrest People Who Visit “Terrorist” Websites”
The Israeli Knesset became the latest legislative body to ban skinny models. The new law prohibits both Israeli and foreign ads with “underweight” models and requires disclosure of when pictures have been manipulated to make the model look thinner.
Continue reading “The Rubens Regulation: Knesset Tells Skinny Models To Eat Or Starve”
A court in Moscow has upheld a lower court decision declaring books on Scientology to be extremist literature and banning publication or distribution of such books. This decision follows moves by other countries against Scientology as a criminal or fraudulent enterprise as well as testimony against the church by former high-ranking church members.
Continue reading “Russian Court Bans Scientology Books As “Extremist””
We have been following the constitutional challenges to the new cigarette advertising regulations requiring graphic images on packages. I have been highly critical of those images and agree with the constitutional and policy concerns raised by the regulations. Now we have two decisions — one from the Sixth Circuit and one from the D.C. district court — reaching opposing results on the constitutionality of regulations. The district court decision sets up the possibility of a split in the circuit with the appeal now going to the D.C. Circuit.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
When the Patriot Act was signed into law back in 2001, there was significant discussion about and distrust in the broad powers granted to the FBI and other intelligence gathering agencies. I won’t go into the uproar that ensued back then, but I do want to discuss the latest events pertaining to the infamous Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Section 215 of the Patriot Act is the section that has been dubbed as the “business records” provision of the Act. In the last few days, two United States Senators reconfirmed their concern over the possible misuse of the broad powers granted to the government in Section 215. Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Mark Udall have made public their recent letter to Attorney General Holder expressing their grave concerns on just how Section 215 is being interpreted and used to spy on Americans. Continue reading “How Patriotic is the Patriot Act?”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
This video of Collinsville, Illinois K9 officer Michael Reichert violating the civil rights of two guys returning from a Star Trek convention.
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
It is a truism that most technology is a two-edged sword. Something created with a beneficial use can and (due to human nature) turned into something harmful is the way the scenario usually plays out. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule where the inverse is true and something harmful turns out to have a beneficial application. To illustrate this point, here is the Vortex Gun.
You saw correctly. This is a gun that can fire concentrated blasts of tear gas, pepper spray or any other aerosol agent moving at 90 miles per hour at targets up to 150 feet away. The “smoke rings” are still moving at 60 miles per hour reaching targets over 90 feet away. What possible benefit could come from such a weapon? Let’s look at the non-military application of the weapon before jumping the gun (pun fully intended).
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Being in my late 60’s and having grown up in a liberal family, politics and history have been always among my greatest interests. Those much younger than I would no doubt list 9/11 as the most traumatizing historical event of their lifetime. While 9/11 of course affected me greatly, no historical event in my life has affected me as much as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I believe that it traumatized my generation so extensively that most of us have not been able to fully believe in our country and its government since that tragic day and its aftermath. Most Americans alive today, who were born in 1960, or afterwards, have only second hand accounts of the total turbulence of the 60’s and the trauma experienced by those who lived through it. There is no doubt that 9/11 has traumatized this nation, but initially it drew most of us together, only to have that unity frittered away by the Bush Administration. The 60’s did that for my generation and that trauma led directly to our current political chaos and deep distrust of government as my generation took the reins of political power.
To most people growing up in the 50’s, on its surface America was the land of opportunity. The USA was a great democracy, unparalleled in human history in the prosperity of its citizens and its standing among nations. For many though, there were obvious cracks in this version of the America Myth. If you were a Black American you faced the viciousness of “Jim Crow” in the South and the somewhat more “genteel” racism pervading the rest of the country. People of Spanish speaking heritage also faced the status of second class citizenship. Native American’s were treated just as badly as they had been from the first European landing on these their shores. Women were, with few exceptions, expected to be subservient to male expectations and were uniformly portrayed as being intellectually inferior. Homosexuals were viciously and violently persecuted. And so it went in 1950’s America. Some great white writers like Mailer, Kerouac, Steinbeck and many others were taking on the myth of the America Dream. Africa American writers like Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin were standing on the shoulders of their predecessors from the Harlem Renaissance, in exposing the oppression Black people faced. There was among many Americans a weariness of the canards of the Eisenhower Administration, the fear based militarism of the Cold War and a recognition that all was not well with a good portion of the population. There was also for many, a hope for purposefulness in their own lives, beyond marriage, house in the suburbs, new car and two kids.
Arriving on the scene, promising to revitalize the country, was JFK, a brilliant speaker, handsome man and charismatic leader. He won a close election against the unlikable Richard Nixon and proceeded to galvanize the nation with the dreams of his New Frontier. JFK also was the source of great enmity among the Washington Establishment. Seen as nouveau riche by the plutocracy, too idealistic and naïve by the Defense, State Departments and CIA, hated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, too “Nigra Friendly” for Southern racists and a threat to the “business as usual” Corporate status quo. He was murdered on a Friday Afternoon in 1963 as my University suspended activities and I sat with friends stunned with grief listening to a car radio and puffing Marlboro’s. That day is etched permanently in my mind and the disturbing events that followed it throughout those turbulent 1960’s forever changed the way I viewed the world. Lee Harvey Oswald was improbably murdered as I watched on TV that Sunday; a flawed Warren Commission Report arrived filled with holes; the murder of Martin Luther King and then Bobby Kennedy; along with the prosecution of a vicious and illegal war; with all this my faith in American Democracy and exceptionalism faded into skeptical disbelief. Life for us ordinary citizens, however, still went on and pleasure, friends, lovers, spouses, families and careers took up most of our time and attention. Nevertheless I devoured everything I could read about the JFK murder and indeed about the history taking place as I lived my mundane life. Recently a book brought all those strange feelings back to the surface and provided a possible explanation why our world seems so much crazier these days. Continue reading “A Real History of the Last Sixty-Two Years?”
There is an interesting controversy in New York where The New York Times ran an ad calling on Catholics to leave their church, but refused to run a similar ad targeting Muslims. Conservatives have jumped on what they say is a double standard. They may have a point.