June 28, 2012

Well, THAT Sucked!

The live blogings of today's SCOTUS follies are below the fold.

To cleanse the palate, here's something much more pleasant.
 


Cute 8 year old science prodigy being cute is "Professor" from Nichijou.
It's 10:10  Still No Decision

Waiting....waiting.....
UPDATE 10:17
(Snerk!) Drudge headline is alternating between MANDATE STANDS and MANDATE GONE.

UPDATE 10:26
Holy Crap:

Upheld 5-4. (updated:initial reports said 6-3)

The mandate cannot be justified under the Commerce Clause, but it is allowable as a Tax.

So:

Get insurance good enough to satisfy the government  by 2014 or pay a fine (or go to jail).

If you have a business be ready to cash it out by 2014 or cut your workforce to the bone because your labor costs are going to skyrocket.

If you are in the Health Insurance business, well you just made out like a bandit....and you will continue to until these progressives turn on you too....as progressives will. 


UPDATE 10:32

Much more disturbing to me, the Stolen Valor Act was struck down, meaning that wicked lying fiends can pretend to be war heroes without penalty.  This seems like legitimizing fraud to me. It's certainly evil.


UPDATE 10:40
It looks like the Stolen Valor Act might be salvageable if rewritten, though I'm not sure it would have any teeth then.
CDR Salamander has thoughts on where we go from here.

UPDATE 10:50
Professor Jacobson has thoughts on this rotten, terrible, not good very bad day.  

Regards the Obamacare decision There's more here.

Instapundit is tentitively sanguine regards the long view"
I should also note that for those who thought the Lopez case dead, this opinion indicates that it remains very much alive. It appears that there may also be support on the Court for limiting Congress’s spending power. Has Roberts pulled a Marbury, appearing to give ground while actually laying the foundation for change in the future? Call that an optimistic reading.


The lawbloggers at The Volokh conspiracy express and link to some interesting thoughts on this decision  here, here, here and here. They have an  interesting and faintly disturbing speculation here.



Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:12 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 349 words, total size 5 kb.

1 "If you are in the Health Insurance business, well you just made out like a bandit"
Probably not, because they will have to start taking in all the currently-uninsured, including those with pre-existing conditions, and they can't charge those people higher premiums.

Posted by: RickC at Thu Jun 28 17:55:02 2012 (WQ6Vb)

2 Regarding the insurance business, I think long-term they're dead.  I currently employ two people; I do not provide health care insurance.  When I am forced to, I will take the cheapest option possible...which I understand to be the government option.  An acquaintance who does provide health insurance claims he will switch to the government option, as his research shows it will be cheaper overall.  And that's probably correct initially, after all, we will ALL be paying for the premiums.  Of course, when it's all said and done and everyone is one the government insurance dole, the cost will be astronomical.

Posted by: Ben at Thu Jun 28 19:19:23 2012 (eC5M6)

3 I've heard the "Marbury" theory too, that by making this NOT a Commerce Clause case, it sets the stage for further rollbacks of the Commerce Clause abuse we've lived with, and that may have been why Roberts went to the pro side, so he could write the opinion.

Posted by: Mauser at Fri Jun 29 04:46:07 2012 (cZPoz)

4 I'm not sure I buy the Marbury analogy. This decision just seems blinkered. As odious as I find the lefts commerce clause argument, the tax thing seems even more of a stretch.  I'm not sure that this will have ANY effect on lefty jurisprudence, since it often seems that they tend to ignore the parts of the constitution they don't like anyway.

Ace links to representatives of both sides of this discussion here.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Jul 1 14:58:04 2012 (EJaOX)

5 OK, they've solved this over at Volokh.

I think I figured out what happened. Randy Barnett made a wish on a cursed monkey’s paw that his commerce clause argument would be accepted. It explains everything, no?


Quick! Someone check to see if Randy Barnett is now a magical girl!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Jul 1 15:16:41 2012 (EJaOX)

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