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Tuesday, April 3, 2012

This Man Taught Constitutional Law?

In what was obviously a preemptive strike, President Obama came out the other day to defend his Affordable Healthcare Act and rhetorically attack any possible Supreme Court decision that does not meet his liking. But in so doing he showed a rather stunning ignorance of Supreme Court history and precedent.

President Obama is a former president of the Harvard Law Review and famously taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. But did he somehow not teach the historic case of Marbury v. Madison?
That's a fair question after Mr. Obama's astonishing remarks on Monday at the White House when he ruminated for the first time in public on the Supreme Court's recent ObamaCare deliberations. "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," he declared.
Presidents are paid to be confident about their own laws, but what's up with that "unprecedented"? In Marbury in 1803, Chief Justice John Marshall laid down the doctrine of judicial review. In the 209 years since, the Supreme Court has invalidated part or all of countless laws on grounds that they violated the Constitution. All of those laws were passed by a "democratically elected" legislature of some kind, either Congress or in one of the states. And no doubt many of them were passed by "strong" majorities.
And what's so strong about a majority of 219 to 212, with only Democrats voting for it?


Read it all.

4 comments:

  1. Add this link about ignorance to your thread!!
    We have a Supreme Court Justice, Sotomator, that doesn't have ANY grasp of current law, yet is sitting in judgement on this 2700 page law.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/03/justice_sonia_sotomayors_shocking_ignorance.html

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  2. Add this link too, please. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504564_162-57408827-504564/appeals-court-fires-back-at-obamas-comments-on-health-care-case/
    Shocking ignorance is not accepted by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the "lower" courts of our judicial structure. Lower, yes, but just one layer below the Supreme Court.
    And then throw into the mix the Separation of Powers, as perhaps explained, except to the elite, in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_review_in_the_United_States

    Mr. Obama is clearly of a mindset that he is the winner in November 2012. To wit: The President's comment to Russian Medveded when speaking of the United States missiel defense system that he would have more flexibility after his reelection. President Medveded clearly understood what Mr. Obama was saying when he said "I will transmit this information to Vladimir." http://blog.chron.com/texassparkle/2012/03/i-will-transmit-this-information-to-vladimir/
    So we have a former professor of Constitional law at a prestigious law school disputing the Separation of Powers by calling out the Supreme Court, and we have at the same individual in charge of this nation's defense systems telling the Russian President to let him get reelected in order to make nicey-nicey with the Russians? By golly isn't there something that links these two?

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  3. With all due respect, Danny, she was confirmed by the senate with a healthy 'yay' vote, 68-31.

    All I remember from the confirmation process was how wonderful it would be to have a hispanic person on the bench and little to nothing else.

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  4. I do know the Senate ignored the NRA on this confirmation. And people are seeing what they got in her now. She doesn't even know the current standing and guiding law that Reagan signed into law.

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