Obama's Top 10 Constitutional Violations...

[paulitician]

It was hard to narrow the list down.


One of the biggest political changes that 2011 brought — in large part due to the tea parties and their effect on the 2010 election — is the centrality of the Constitution to our public discourse. Lawmakers and citizens no longer consider simply whether a given bill or policy proposal is a good idea but whether it is constitutional. “Where does the government get the power to do that?” is often critics’ rallying cry.

That’s a healthy development. For far too long, even in those rare moments when politicians were faced with constitutional concerns, they’ve had the attitude Nancy Pelosi did when asked about the authority for Obamacare’s individual mandate: “Are you serious?” Because, of course, constitutional arguments are the last refuge of the scoundrel who has no good policy arguments to make or political power to levy.

And so it’s a good thing that Americans are taking their founding document seriously. After all, the Constitution is the font of all federal power. Its carefully crafted structural provisions that we learned about in grade school, such as the separation of powers and checks and balances, are not merely an application of political theory.

“Federalism is more than an exercise in setting the boundary between different institutions of government for their own integrity,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court earlier this year. “By denying any one government complete jurisdiction over all the concerns of public life,” Kennedy continued, “federalism protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power.” If the federal government acts outside the scope of its delegated and carefully enumerated powers,then it's no better than an armed mob.



Read more: President Obama's top 10 constitutional violations | The Daily Caller

 

[paulitician]

1. The Individual Mandate
2. Medicaid Coercion
3. The Independent Payment Advisory Board (a.k.a. "The Death Panel")
4. The Chrysler bailout
5. Dodd-Frank
6. The Deep-Water Drilling Ban
7. Political-Speech Disclosure For Federal Constractors
8. Taxing Political Constributions
9. Graphic Tobacco Warnings
10. Health Care Waivers

http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/04/president-obamas-top-10-constitutional-violations/

 

[Bass v 2.0]

1. The Individual Mandate
2. Medicaid Coercion
3. The Independent Payment Advisory Board (a.k.a. "The Death Panel")
4. The Chrysler bailout
5. Dodd-Frank
6. The Deep-Water Drilling Ban
7. Political-Speech Disclosure For Federal Constractors
8. Taxing Political Constributions
9. Graphic Tobacco Warnings
10. Health Care Waivers

President Obama's top 10 constitutional violations | The Daily Caller

Straight from the textbook of rightwing retardology from dailycaller.

 

[Navy1960]

I would be interested Paul on what specific Amendments under the constitution you feel those 10 items you listed violated. As far as the Individual Mandate goes, I agree with you on that one as I tend to think that it violates several Amendments to the constitution, among them, Article 1 Sec. 8 because the healthcare bill seeks to regulate an inactivity rather than an activity as well as it appears to be a Bill of Attainder, Article 1 sec. 9, which seeks to tax without due process. On the others though, am not so sure, I can't see anything glaring enough in the others to warrant saying they are outright unconstitutional as many of the things you have listed are well within the rights of Congress to regulate under the constitution.

 

[paulitician]

1. The Individual Mandate
2. Medicaid Coercion
3. The Independent Payment Advisory Board (a.k.a. "The Death Panel")
4. The Chrysler bailout
5. Dodd-Frank
6. The Deep-Water Drilling Ban
7. Political-Speech Disclosure For Federal Constractors
8. Taxing Political Constributions
9. Graphic Tobacco Warnings
10. Health Care Waivers

President Obama's top 10 constitutional violations | The Daily Caller

Straight from the textbook of rightwing retardology from dailycaller.

Yea like you read the article.

 

[Alan Stallion]

Illegal war in Libya didn't make the cut? Hmph.

 

[007]

1. The Individual Mandate
2. Medicaid Coercion
3. The Independent Payment Advisory Board (a.k.a. "The Death Panel")
4. The Chrysler bailout
5. Dodd-Frank
6. The Deep-Water Drilling Ban
7. Political-Speech Disclosure For Federal Constractors
8. Taxing Political Constributions
9. Graphic Tobacco Warnings
10. Health Care Waivers

President Obama's top 10 constitutional violations | The Daily Caller

11). Forged certificate of birth
12). Fruadulent SSN
13). Father was a subject of Britain giving him a dual citizenship at birth, making him ineligible to be President.
14). He's an idiot.

 

[paulitician]

Illegal war in Libya didn't make the cut? Hmph.

I agree,that should have been pretty high on the list.

 

[Rocko]

I'd put being born in Kenya as #1.

 

[Steelplate]

To those that equate the Constitution in the same regards as the bible... You're all fuckin' nuts.

That is all.

 

[Mustang]

How about running for president while not being a 'natural-born citizen?'

Or maybe crossing the street against the light? You know, jaywalking?

 

[Dragon]

The first two are gray areas. The other eight are unambiguously NOT unconstitutional.

 

[Greenbeard]

2. Medicaid Coercion

To quote the 11th Circuit Court, the only of the appellate courts that have ruled on the law so far to deal any kind of defeat to the ACA:

And so it is not without serious thought and some hesitation that we conclude that the Act’s expansion of Medicaid is not unduly coercive under Dole and Steward Machine. There are several factors, which, for us, are determinative.

First, the Medicaid-participating states were warned from the beginning of the Medicaid program that Congress reserved the right to make changes to the program. See 42 U.S.C. § 1304 (“The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this chapter is hereby reserved to the Congress.” McRae, 448 U.S. at 301, 100 S. Ct. at 2680 (noting “[a]lthough participation in the Medicaid program is entirely optional, once a State elects to participate, it must comply with the requirements” that Congress sees fit to impose). Indeed, Congress has made numerous amendments to the program since its inception in 1965. 42 U.S.C. § 1396a Note (listing amendments).66 In each of these previous amendments, the states were given the option to comply with the changes, or lose all or part of their funding. Id. § 1396c. None of these amendments has been struck down as unduly coercive.

Second, the federal government will bear nearly all of the costs associated with the expansion. The states will only have to pay incidental administrative costs associated with the expansion until 2016; after which, they will bear an increasing percentage of the cost, capping at 10% in 2020.67 Id. § 1396d(y)(1). If states bear little of the cost of expansion, the idea that states are being coerced into spending money in an ever-growing program seems to us to be “more rhetoric than fact.” Dole, 483 U.S. at 211, 107 S. Ct. at 2798.

Third, states have plenty of notice—nearly four years from the date the bill was signed into law—to decide whether they will continue to participate in Medicaid by adopting the expansions or not. This gives states the opportunity to develop new budgets (indeed, Congress allocated the cost of the entire expansion to the federal government initially, with the cost slowly shifting to the states over a period of six years) to deal with the expansion, or to develop a replacement program in their own states if they decide to do so.

Fourth, like our sister circuits, we cannot ignore the fact that the states have the power to tax and raise revenue, and therefore can create and fund programs of their own if they do not like Congress’s terms. See Pace, 403 F.3d at 278; Jersey City Pub. Schs., 341 F.3d at 243–44.

Finally, we note that while the state plaintiffs vociferously argue that states who choose not to participate in the expansion will lose all of their Medicaid funding, nothing in the Medicaid Act states that this is a foregone conclusion. Indeed, the Medicaid Act provides HHS with the discretion to withhold all or merely a portion of funding from a noncompliant state. 42 U.S.C. § 1396c; see also West Virginia v. HHS, 289 F.3d at 291–92; Dole, 483 U.S. at 211, 107 S. Ct. at 2798 (finding no coercion when “all South Dakota would lose if she adheres to her chosen course as to a suitable minimum drinking age is 5% of the funds otherwise obtainable under specified highway grant programs&#8221.

Taken together, these factors convince us that the Medicaid-participating states have a real choice—not just in theory but in fact—to participate in the Act’s Medicaid expansion. See Dole, 483 U.S. at 211, 107 S. Ct. at 2798. Where an entity has a real choice, there can be no coercion. See Steward Mach., 301 U.S. at 590, 57 S. Ct. at 892 (noting that in the absence of undue influence, “the law has been guided by a robust common sense which assumes the freedom of the will as a working hypothesis in the solution of its problems&#8221.

Accordingly, the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the government on the Medicaid expansion issue is affirmed.

All excellent points for why the Medicaid expansion is not, in fact, unduly coercive.

 

[paulitician]

I'd put being born in Kenya as #1.