In addition to citizens united, here’s more proof that the American democracy is for sale to the highest bidder.
The Conservative led Supreme Court ruled 5-4, in a decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that limits on the total amount of money donors can give to all candidates, committees and political parties are unconstitutional. The decision frees the nation’s wealthiest donors to have greater influence in federal elections.
The decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission marks the latest round in the bitter national debate over the role of money in American politics. It’s the most important campaign-finance ruling since the high court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts independently to influence elections…
The decision was a victory for the Republican National Committee and Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon, who challenged the $123,200 cap on contributions an individual can give to all federal candidates, parties and political action committees in a two-year election cycle.
Chris Christie is not too happy with the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage.
“I don’t think the ruling was appropriate,” said Christie, who is running for reelection in a blue state, one in which Democrats have hailed the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage.
“I think it was wrong,” Christie continued, calling it “typical of the problem we see” in New Jersey’s own Supreme Court.
He blasted the U.S. Supremes for substituting “their own judgment for the judgment of a Republican Congress and a Democratic President. In the Republican Congress in the ‘90s and Bill Clinton. I thought that Justice Kennedy’s opinion was, in many respects, incredibly insulting to those people, 340-some members of Congress who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, and Bill Clinton.”
“He basically said that the only reason to pass that bill was to demean people. That’s heck of a thing to say about Bill Clinton and about the Republican Congress back in the ‘90s. And it’s just another example of judicial supremacy, rather than having the government run by the people we actually vote for,” said Christie, who recently appeared with Clinton at a Clinton Global Initiative conference.
Clinton himself has walked away from the signing of DOMA, and in a statement said he was pleased with the court’s ruling.
Christie is polling as a top prospect for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, and a number of evangelical leaders made clear after the SCOTUS ruling that the base of the party will remain opposed to same-sex marriage.
Yet, Christie is running in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and wooing Democrats has been a huge part of a strategy aimed at driving up his margin of victory, should he win over rival Barbara Buono.
Remember when conservatives across the nation accused liberal justices of being activists? Of making law without interpreting it? Of imposing their political ideology on court cases instead of taking a uniquely 18th century view of the constitution? Good times, no?
Welcome to the conservative majority.
Today’s ruling in the Voting Rights Act case shows that the right can be just as activist, just as ideological and just as dismissive of the democratic process as they accused the left of being. It was evident during arguments in March, and the decision was not far off from what many feared would happen.
Justice Thomas called for striking down Section 5 immediately, saying the majority opinion had provided the reasons and merely left “the inevitable conclusion unstated.”
The most disturbing part of the decision came from Justice Roberts, who claims to care about originalism and reliance on the past, except in cases where he doesn’t. Thus,
The current coverage scheme, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, is “based on 40-year-old facts having no relationship to the present day.”
“Congress — if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions,” he wrote. “It cannot simply rely on the past.”
What makes sense in light of current conditions is a product of the past. That’s the bedrock assumption of every history class I’ve ever taken and one that serious historians wouldsurely agree. It’s like saying that Paula Deen said what she said only in light of what’s happening in the country in 2013 and forgetting that she is a product of a specific time, place, history and upbringing.
As usual, it took a liberal justice to remind the court why the Voting Rights Act had been passed in the first place and why we still need it today: History. From Justice Ginsburg:
“The great man who led the march from Selma to Montgomery and there called for the passage of the Voting Rights Act foresaw progress, even in Alabama,” she said. “’The arc of the moral universe is long,’ he said, but ‘it bends toward justice,’ if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion.”
“That commitment,” she said, “has been disserved by today’s decision.”
Ginsburg also laid out a chilling future based on today’s decision.
She said the focus of the Voting Rights Act had properly changed from “first-generation barriers to ballot access” to “second-generation barriers” like racial gerrymandering and laws requiring at-large voting in places with a sizable black minority. She said Section 5 had been effective in thwarting such efforts.
As if on cue, and wasting no time in trying to disenfranchise the next generation,
“With today’s decision,” said Greg Abbott, Texas’ attorney general, “the state’s voter ID law will take effect immediately. Redistricting maps passed by the Legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government.”
Finally, you know that things are seriously awry when a liberal has to remind the conservatives of the bedrock of right wing originalist dogma:
In any event, she said, Congress, which reauthorized the law by a large majority in the House and unanimously in the Senate, was the right body to decide whether the law was needed and where.
Exactly.
Yes, we have an African-American president and we had more African-American participation in the 2012 election, and we have many more African-Americans in local and state offices.But we still have mischief and we still have false cries of voter fraud from the right. What will happen now because of this decision is that those laws will take affect and aggrieved parties will need to react to them after the fact. You were denied your vote? Oh well. Better luck next time.
If Harry Reid is our only hope, we probably have no more hope left. Remember, Harry Reid was the same guy who promised to do something about the Republican abused Filibuster, just to sit on his hands when the time came for him to act.
Now, after the Supreme Court voted down Section 5 of the Voting Act, Harry Reid is once again promising to act.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Tuesday that the “Senate will act” to address the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
First, Reid said he will task Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to hold “wide-ranging hearings” on the subject beginning next month after Senate Democrats huddled on the issue during their lunch caucuses on Tuesday.
“There’s general displeasure — and that’s an understatement — in my caucus about what the Supreme Court did. Especially in light of what happened this last election cycle, with Republicans doing everything they could to suppress voting,” Reid told reporters after the lunches. “This is a dark day for the Supreme Court. But it’s been pretty cloudy over there for some time now.
Some Democrats added that the threat posed to minority voting rights — especially through hotly-contested voter ID laws — was just as present as it was when the VRA went into effect. But Republicans argue that the voting situation is much improved since the the act first passed.
“It’s an important bill that passed back in the ’60s at a time when we had a very different America than we have today,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky, who declined to elaborate beyond that statement: “At this point I think I’m just going to have to read it first.”
In a 7-2 decision announced Monday morning, the Supreme Court of the United States has rejected the state of Arizona’s efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to voter registration forms.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (a/k/a “The Motor Voter Law”) requires States to “accept and use” a uniform federal form to register voters for federal elections, and the Court now holds that states cannot graft additional requirements onto that form, which only requires that voters affirm that they are citizens.
Justice Scalia—yes, him—wrote the decision of the court, a majority consisting of everyone other than Justices Thomas and Alito. It relies on the Elections Clause of the Constitution (Art. I, §4, cl. 1), which provides that while states have preliminary control over federal elections, Congress can supersede the states’ choices:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the places of chusing Senators.
And, basically, the Court holds that when the NVRA says the states must “accept and use” the federal form, it must accept and use them as sufficient to register voters:
When Congress legislates with respect to the “Times, Places and Manner” of holding congressional elections, it necessarily displaces some element of a pre-existing legal regime erected by the States. Because the power the Elections Clause confers is none other than the power to preempt, the reasonable assumption is that the statutory text accurately communicates the scope of Congress’s preemptive intent. Moreover, the federalism concerns underlying the presumption in the Supremacy Clause context are somewhat weaker here. Unlike the States’ “historic police powers,” the States’ role in regulating congressional elections—while weighty and worthy of respect—has always existed subject to the express qualification that it “terminates according to federal law.” In sum, there is no compelling reason not to read Elections Clause legislation simply to mean what it says.
We conclude that the fairest reading of the statute is that a state-imposed requirement of evidence of citizenship not required by the Federal Form is “inconsistent with” the NVRA’s mandate that States “accept and use” the Federal Form. If this reading prevails, the Elections Clause requires that Arizona’s rule give way.
If the country is rushing headlong toward full-throated endorsement of same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court apparently didn’t get the memo.
Over two days of oral arguments on what has been described as the civil rights issue of the 21st century, the justices spent more time addressing mundane matters of states’ rights and judicial standing than threshold issues of equality and morality.
The result still may be at least incremental progress for the gay rights movement, but it’s likely to come more with a whimper than a bang — and with substantial regrets about the way the two cases were presented, argued and decided.
The best guess at this point is that the court, controlled by Justice Anthony Kennedy, its swing vote, will leave California’s gay marriage ban in the hands of that state’s courts, which already have struck it down. That would legalize gay marriage in the nation’s largest state — no small matter — but would not implicate similar bans in 37 other states.
And even on the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which offered a fatter target for the court because it denies financial and other benefits to legally married same-sex couples, the court fretted more over the government’s jurisdiction than matters of morality.
The Supreme Court will finally hear arguments in the Marriage Equality cases this week, and it’s about time. If justice delayed is justice denied, than we’ve had denial of justice for a good part of our population for far too long.
The opponents of marriage equality do not want to talk about civil rights. They don’t want to talk about equality. They don’t want to talk about gays sharing in society and being fully accepted in American culture. What they want to talk about is redefining marriage, which they say is what these cases are all about. They also want to point to the Bible for their definition, and cite its prohibitions against any homosexual activity. You’ll excuse me, but I am tired of having to worry about what a book that also mandates stoning, banishment and ritual murder has to say about people who live in a manner that is really not your business. If religious opponents of marriage equality can pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to apply here, then I will feel free to ignore the Bible altogether as a remnant of tales, stories and oral histories that provide a fascinating narrative, but are not relevant to the modern world.
But in the end, they are simply redefining equality. And that’s wrong.
The main argument against marriage equality is that it would redefine the institution that opponents believe to be the bedrock of any civilization. Once you allow anybody who loves another person to marry them, then you’re opening the door to polygamy, incest and child marriage. Here’s Brian S. Brown, one of the most active opponents of marriage equality:
“When you knock over a core pillar of society like marriage, and then try to redefine biblical views of marriage as bigotry, there will be consequences,” Mr. Brown warned last August in a fund-raising letter. “Will one of the consequences be a serious push to normalize pedophilia?”
Then there’s this audio from the NPR program The Takeaway, where Joseph Backholm, executive director of Family Policy Institute, an anti-marriage equality group, says that not only should gays not be allowed to marry, they shouldn’t be able to adopt and raise children, since that right is traditionally reserved for those who can create children. I guess childless heterosexual couples need not apply either.
This is what the right wing does best: They scare and twist facts so that there’s no other choice but to oppose the same things they oppose. But Mr. Brown did more than that. He enlisted African-American clergymen and women to oppose marriage equality because, he said, it was less a civil rights issue than one of religious doctrine. Wasn’t this the same argument that segregationists used to fight integration? Yes it was.
Denying people rights is the same no matter what their station is. Laws that forbid intermarriage were overturned.Laws that forbid certain sexual practices were overturned. Public places were integrated. The long history of our country generally moves in one direction; towards more freedom and more access for all groups. I can’t imagine the Supreme Court saying that marriage equality is against the Constitution. It’s just a matter of how far they’ll go.
The problem, though, is that even if the Court overturns the Defense of Marriage Act, it doesn’t mean that gay couples will have an unfettered right to marry or enjoy the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples. Unless the Court mandates marriage equality throughout the nation, states that don’t recognize it can continue to not do so. That will continue to complicate the lives of those couples who are legally married in the eight states that do recognize marriages if they even visit states that do not. That’s not equality. More delays. More denials.
I expect that the Court will open the gates to marriage equality in some way, but won’t make a sweeping judgement that covers the whole country. I also believe that this will be another John Roberts decision and that he will provide the fifth vote in favor. If Anthony Kennedy comes along, then the tally will be 6-3. I just can’t see Scalia, Alito or Thomas signing on to this.
Opponents of marriage equality say that an expansion of marriage rights is not a done deal. I disagree. Many people already have these marriage rights in the states that recognize gay marriage. I cannot imagine that the court would take those rights away. And once they are affirmed, they will become part of the American way of life. Gay couples will be more visible and will ultimately become more accepted. It will take some time and there will be bumps along the way, but it will happen.
Because this is a civil rights issue. Plain and simple.
A new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation taken after the Supreme Court upheld ObamaCare finds a majority of Americans are tired of the Republican’s efforts to repeal President Obama’s Healthcare law.
This poll fielded following the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the heart of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) finds a majority of Americans (56 percent) now say they would like to see the law’s detractors stop their efforts to block its implementation and move on to other national problems.
Democrats overwhelmingly say opponents should move on to other issues (82 percent), as do half (51 percent) of independents and a quarter (26 percent) of Republicans. But, seven in ten Republicans (69 percent) say they want to see efforts to stop the law continue, a view shared by 41 percent of independents and 14 percent of Democrats.
The public is also divided in its emotional reaction to the decision, with similar shares reporting being angry (17 percent) and enthusiastic (18 percent). Negative emotions run highest among Republicans who support the Tea Party movement, with 49 percent of this group saying they are angry at the decision.
But what Americans want means nothing to Republicans, as John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are still promising to repeal the law.
(CBS News) Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.
Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy – believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law – led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.
“He was relentless,” one source said of Kennedy’s efforts. “He was very engaged in this.”
But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, “You’re on your own.”
As Donald Trump would say, what the Supreme Court did Thursday in upholding President Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act is “HUGE!”
Even Mitt Romney realized the magnitude of what would happen if ObamaCare was declared constitutional. On the days leading up to the Court’s decision, Mitt Romney was heard at various campaign events saying, “if this law is unconstitutional, that would prove that Obama wasted his presidency.”
Needless to say, the Supreme Court – whose main task is to interpret laws in accordance with the Constitution of the United States – disagreed with Mitt Romney wholeheartedly.
But if we are to apply Romney’s logic to this, wouldn’t it mean that the President’s first term was not wasted but turned out to be a tremendous success? Wouldn’t it then mean that President Obama has done his job in accordance to the Constitution – approved and validated by the highest Court in the land – and furthermore, if we apply Romney’s logic to this situation, wouldn’t it mean that Romney, with his everlasting calls to repeal ObamaCare, is going against a Supreme Court that called the law constitutional, thus, is he not going against the United States Constitution?
When President signed the Affordable Health Care Act into law in 2010, Vice President Biden was overheard whispering in the President’s ear, “Mr President, this is a big f*cking deal.” With the Supreme validating the constitutionality of the law on Thursday, consider this a big f*cking deal… part 2!
And by the way, why exactly are Republicans pushing Mitt Romney as their presidential candidate? The man is apparently against the Constitution of the United States.
Former President Bill Clintonspoke at a recent fundraiser earlier this week and warned of the dangers this country faced if the Supreme Court rules against President Obama’s Health Care Law. Given his special abilities to explain complex matters to a two-year old, Mr. Clinton broke it down like this”
If the Supreme Court decides to invalidate the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, there will be consequences, Clinton said, which he claims aren’t being reported, and which he spelled out:
• Changing the health-care delivery system has already produced two years in a row of 4 percent inflation in health-care costs. This is the first time in 50 years that health-care costs have gone up so little. Killing the Affordable Care Act would let inflation loose again.
• Some 2.6 million people ages 21 to 26, who now have insurance coverage for the first time because they can be carried under their parents’ policy, would lose it.
• $1.3 billion dollars in insurance refunds have already been paid to businesses and individuals because now the law says 85 percent of your premium has to go to health care and not to profits and promotion. (California hasn’t reported yet, but will likely increase that figure to more than $1.5 billion.) Refunds would shrink.
• If Republicans succeed in persuading the Supreme Court to repeal the individual mandate, somewhere between 12 million and 16 million Americans will be unable to get health insurance because of preexisting conditions.
The Daily Beast also reports that “Clinton predicted that if the law is declared unconstitutional, Republicans will suffer a backlash when millions of Americans calculate what they have lost. Before the Affordable Care Act passed, two thirds of all the applications for bankruptcy were because of health-care emergencies, a consequence likely to return if health care inflation again rises precipitously.”
“Before Mitt Romney as governor signed the individual mandate, Massachusetts had the highest health-care costs in America. Today, that state is seventh, because inflation in health-care costs in that state have been much lower than in the country as a whole. Why? The mandate prevents insurance companies from shifting their promotional costs to consumers, Clinton said.”
The Supreme Court will issue its decision on Health Care on Thursday.
The attention grabbing Sarah Palin is at it again. And this time, she has decided to bring back one of the many lies she created. A lie that was debunked by fact-checkers and even won the lie of the year award the year Palin invented it.
Sarah Palin is bringing back the Death Panels lie.
“Though I was called a liar for calling it like it is, many of these accusers finally saw that Obamacare did in fact create a panel of faceless bureaucrats who have the power to make life and death decisions about health care funding.”
What do you expect. For a moment if felt like the rest of the world had moved on and left Sarah Palin behind. But it was too good to be true. Unable to find a reputable news channel (Fox is not news, and Fox is not reputable) that will give her the time of day, Palin has decided to resurrect an issue that was put to rest almost three years ago. With the Supreme Court expected to deliver its decision on Health Care this Thursday, Palin chose this time to blabb her nonsense with the expectation that her name would once again be mentioned.
I’ll say it one more time…Sarah Palin. There! I hope you’re happy. Now please go away!
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