Obama and Supreme Court may be on collision course

David G. Savage,

The president’s agenda on healthcare and financial regulations sets the stage for a clash with the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.

The Supreme Court wrapped up its term last week after landmark decisions protecting the right to have a gun and the right of corporations to spend freely on elections. But the year’s most important moment may have come on the January evening when the justices gathered at the Capitol for President Obama’s State of the Union address.

They had no warning about what was coming.

Obama and his advisors had weighed how to respond to the court’s ruling the week before, which gave corporations the same free-spending rights as ordinary Americans. They saw the ruling as a rash, radical move to tilt the political system toward big business as they coped with the fallout from the Wall Street collapse.
Some advisors counseled caution, but the president opted to criticize the conservative justices in the uncomfortable spotlight of national television as Senate Democrats roared their approval.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is still angered by what he saw as a highly partisan insult to the independent judiciary. The incident put a public spotlight on the deep divide between the Obama White House and the Roberts court, one that could have a profound effect in the years ahead.

The president and congressional Democrats have embarked on an ambitious drive to regulate corporations, banks, health insurers and the energy industry. But the high court, with Roberts increasingly in control, will have the final word on those regulatory laws.

Many legal experts foresee a clash between Obama’s progressive agenda and the conservative court.

“Presidents with active agendas for change almost always encounter resistance in the courts,” said Stanford University law professor Michael W. McConnell, a former federal appellate court judge. “It happened to [ Franklin D.] Roosevelt and it happened to Reagan. It will likely happen to Obama too.”

Already, the healthcare overhaul law, Obama’s signal achievement, is under attack in the courts. Republican attorneys general from 20 states have sued, insisting the law and its mandate to buy health insurance exceed Congress’ power and trample on states’ rights.

Two weeks ago, a federal judge in New Orleans ruled Obama had overstepped his authority by ordering a six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

On another front, the administration says it will soon go to court in Phoenix seeking to block Arizona’s controversial immigration law, which is due to take effect July 29. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer said Arizona would go to the Supreme Court, if necessary, to preserve the law.

As chief justice, Roberts has steered the court on a conservative course, one that often has tilted toward business. For example, the justices have made it much harder for investors or pension funds to sue companies for stock fraud.

Two years ago, the court declared for the first time that the gun rights of individuals were protected by the Constitution. This year, the justices made clear this was a “fundamental” right that extended to cities and states as well as federal jurisdictions.

Since the arrival in 2006 of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., Roberts has had a five-member majority skeptical of campaign funding restrictions. At first, he moved cautiously. Roberts spoke for the majority in 2007 in saying that a preelection broadcast ad sponsored by a nonprofit corporation was protected as free speech even though it criticized a candidate for office.

Last year, the court had before it another seemingly minor challenge to election laws by a group that wanted permission to sell a DVD that slammed Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was running for president in 2008. This time, however, Roberts decided on a much bolder move.

The 5-4 ruling in the Citizens United case struck down all limits on direct election spending — for giant, profit-making corporations as well as small nonprofit groups. For more than 60 years, Congress and many states had barred corporate and union spending to sway elections. The court’s opinion dismissed all such laws as unconstitutional censorship.

The decision came as a “real shock to the administration and to the Democrats in Congress,” said Simon Lazarus, counsel for the National Senior Citizens Law Center. “It’s also caused a sea change in their thinking about the court. Before, it was all about the ‘culture wars’ issues, like abortion, prayer and gay rights. Afterward, they saw this new activist thrust among the conservatives as a direct threat to their legislative agenda.”

The change was on full display in last week’s Senate hearing on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Democrats accused the high court of judicial activism in favor of corporations — “particularly by the five Republican appointees who have steered so hard to the right,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

Republicans in the hearing targeted Obama’s “tremendous expansion” of the government and argued for the court to aggressively restrain Congress and the White House. “The Supreme Court … ought to go for freedom, not more government,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).

Obama chose Kagan for the court believing she could bridge the gap with some of its conservatives. Her mission is to help uphold the laws that Obama and Democrats are pushing through Congress.

During her hearing, Kagan found herself in the odd spot of defending judicial restraint before senators who usually worry aloud about sending a “judicial activist” to the court.

“Can you name for me any economic activity that the federal government cannot regulate under the commerce clause?” asked Sen. John Cornyn (R- Texas).

“I wouldn’t try to,” Kagan replied, emphasizing that the court has long said lawmakers have broad powers to regulate economic activity.

The high court, however, will decide whether making Americans buy health insurance amounts to economic activity.

It may be another year or two before a true challenge to the Obama agenda reaches the Supreme Court.

McConnell, the law professor, said the administration’s broad set of regulatory moves made a clash almost inevitable. “It does not mean the courts are being ‘political,’ ” he said. “It is the way the institutions are designed, to create checks and balances.”

Read the original article LATimes

Obama’s new military: Gays showering with straights

Gays showering with straights? Absolutely.

If President Obama, congressional Democrats, and homosexual activists get their wish, your son or daughter may be forced to share military showers and barracks with active and open homosexuals who may very well view them with sexual interest.

Talk about creating a hostile work environment for people who practice normative sexuality!

As former General Colin Powell observed in 1993 (before bowing to pressures of political correctness), “…it would be prejudicial to good order and discipline to try to integrate gays and lesbians in the current military structure.”

He compellingly argued against the completely bogus comparison between race and sexual preference: “Skin color is a benign, nonbehavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument.”

Here are some important facts:

• Both the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (which includes four million vets) have come out strongly against overturning the ban, with the VFW calling it a “new social-engineering project.”
• More than 1,160 retired admirals and generals strongly oppose the change, saying that overturning the ban would “undermine recruiting and retention, impact leadership at all levels, have adverse effects on the willingness of parents who lend their sons and daughter to military service, and eventually break the All-Volunteer Force.”
• Richard H. Black, the former chief of the U.S. Army’s criminal law division, citing numerous “criminal reports document[ing] serious offenses being committed frequently by homosexual GIs,” calls the ban “an essential element of military discipline” which “must be retained.”
• Overturning the ban will likely preclude advancement and promotions for officers and chaplains who do not publicly affirm homosexual behavior, essentially ending their military careers.

If we do not insist that the ban on homosexual military service be retained, our military will no longer be the place America’s families want to send their best and brightest young men and women.

Additional resource:  AFA has established a dedicated webpage with extensive resources to help you understand and debate this issue.

Read the original article AFA

Pelosi says Congress close to health deal

By John Whitesides and Donna Smith
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday congressional Democrats were close to agreement on merging their healthcare bills but still faced challenges in blending the two approaches.

For the second consecutive day, Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders met with President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss ways to reconcile the House’s healthcare overhaul with a version passed by the Senate.

“We’ve had a very intense couple of days,” Pelosi told reporters after the White House meeting. “I think we are very close to reconciliation, respectful of the challenges.”

Democratic House-Senate negotiators must bridge differences on issues including the use of federal funds for abortion, new taxes to pay for the plans, a government-run insurance option and the level of subsidies and penalties for the uninsured.

The two bills must be melded into one and passed again by each chamber before Obama can sign it.

But Democrats must keep each member of their fragile 60-vote Senate caucus together to muscle the bill through over unified Republican opposition, meaning the final version must hew closely to the Senate bill on several crucial points.

Obama urged the House Democratic leaders to include a tax on high-priced health insurance policies that is in the Senate bill, The New York Times reported. Obama has previously said he favors such a tax on so-called Cadillac plans.

“There’s so much agreement in the bills but sometimes we approach the issue differently, so we have to figure out the best approach,” Pelosi said after Wednesday’s meeting.

The overhaul, Obama’s top legislative priority, would lead to the biggest changes in the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system since the 1965 creation of the government-run Medicare health program for the elderly.

Both bills would extend insurance coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans and halt industry practices such as refusing insurance to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

House leaders have a list of about two-dozen issues to be resolved, a House aide said, with a goal of finishing work before Obama’s State of the Union address to Congress sometime in early February.

SPEED THE PROCESS

To speed the process along, Congress plans to dispense with the traditional House-Senate conference committee — which could face procedural challenges from Senate Republicans — and let House and Senate leaders negotiate the merger.

“We’re in a can-do mood,” Representative Xavier Becerra, a member of the House leadership, told reporters after a morning meeting in Pelosi’s office to plot negotiating strategy before House Democratic leaders talk to members by phone on Thursday.

Both bills would require most Americans to have insurance, give subsidies to help some pay for coverage and create exchanges where the uninsured could compare and shop for plans.

The need to keep all 60 Senate supporters on board probably means the government-run public insurance plan included in the House bill, but opposed by a handful of Senate moderates, must be jettisoned — an outcome Pelosi signaled on Tuesday she was willing to accept.

In return for dropping the public insurance option, House members hope to expand the subsidies available to low-income families to purchase insurance without dramatically increasing the bill’s price tag — which was $871 billion over 10 years for the Senate but more than $1 trillion for the House.

“Everyone wants to make sure there is strong accountability and it’s going to be affordable for the middle class, House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter told reporters before the White House meeting.

So far, much of the discussion has focused on the tax differences in the two bills. The Senate’s tax on high-cost “Cadillac” insurance plans — opposed by labor unions and many House Democrats — could be adjusted to ensure it does not hit middle-class workers.

“I think the House Democrats have been very clear on that issue,” Becerra said. “We’re trying to make sure that this does not effect middle-class Americans.”

The House’s tax on the very wealthiest Americans — those individuals making more than $500,000 and families who make more than $1 million — also could be at risk.

Healthcare stocks have gained ground as the healthcare debate has dragged on since summer and investors have seen changes they believe are more favorable to companies.

The S&P Health Care Sector index has gained 32 percent since late February 2009 when Obama released initial healthcare proposals in his budget. But by comparison, the broader S&P 500 is up 51 percent during the same period.

Read the original article on YahooNews

A Disconnected President

A bad week for Democrats compounded by an awful moment for Barack Obama.

By Robert A. George

President Obama didn’t wait long after Tuesday’s devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.

After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a “shout-out” to “Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner.”  Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?

Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That’s the least that should occur. 

Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event. 

Did the president’s team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on — and the initial words coming out of their president’s mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.

It must have been disappointing for many politically aware Democrats, still reeling from the election two days before. The New Jersey gubernatorial vote had already demonstrated that the president and his political team couldn’t produce a winning outcome in a state very friendly to Democrats (and where the president won by 15 points one year ago). And now this? Congressional Democrats must wonder if a White House that has burdened them with a too-heavy policy agenda over the last year has a strong enough political operation to help push that agenda through. 

If the president’s communications apparatus can’t inform — and protect — their boss during tense moments when the country needs to see a focused commander-in-chief and a compassionate head of state, it has disastrous consequences for that president’s party and supporters. 

All the president’s men (and women) fell down on the job Thursday.  And Democrats across the country have real reason to panic. 

Read the Original article on NBCChicago

Revenge of the middle class

By John Feehery

The elections today should send a simple message to the Obama administration and congressional Democrats: You lost the middle class, and you won’t get them back until you fundamentally change your legislative agenda.

During last year’s campaign, President Barack Obama consistently stressed how his policies were going to help the middle class. He talked about his middle-class tax cut. He promised that any new spending would be paid by the rich. He attacked his opponent, John McCain, continuously for his plan to raise taxes on the middle class. He promised change the middle class could believe in. He was Mr. Middle Class.

John McCain never mentioned the middle class. Not once. Sure, he made fun of Obama’s celebrity (not understanding that the middle class kind of likes celebrity), he talked about the war (not understanding that many in the middle class are tired of war), and he talked about taxes and the free market (when the middle class were growing tired of the free market and weren’t that concerned about their taxes going up).

Obama won the middle class (or at least did better than he should have) in the last election, and that is one of the most important reasons why he won the election.

Now, a year into his presidency, the middle class is turning on the Obama administration, and more importantly, the Democrats in Congress. They don’t particularly love Republicans either, but at least Republicans aren’t being blamed for what has happened over the last 10 months.

The middle class sees the Wall Street bailout, sees Tim Geithner, a former Wall Street wunderkind, orchestrating it, and they get angry.

The middle class sees bailout money going for things like a grant for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshman women, or $800,000 for a project to build a backup runway for the John Murtha airport, and they get really angry.

They get angry because they know that they are going to have to pay for it.

They get angry because they know that they are going to have to pay for the new tax on energy consumption, a tax that they know will make life harder on them.

They get angry when they see a healthcare bill that may or may not give healthcare coverage to illegal immigrants, but certainly won’t make their current healthcare premiums go down. And they know that they will have to pay for that, too.

They get angry when they see the president not make a decision on or show leadership on Afghanistan, but rush off at a moment’s notice to Copenhagen to see if he can get his hometown of Chicago the Olympics, only to be humiliated in the process.

They like Obama personally (or at least that is what the polls show), but they are angry that the Democrats seem to care more about the rich and the poor, and less about them.

They see all this big government coming, and they see all this bailout money going, and they don’t think it is right. They think they are going to get screwed, and worse, they think the country is going in the wrong direction.

And today, they are going to vote against the president and the Democrats, and send a message that they hope will get their attention.

If that doesn’t work, they will try again next November.

Read the original artickle on TheHill.com