A Big (and Maybe Bad) Week for SCOTUS

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) announced its immigration decision on Monday, pretty much gutting the Arizona law of the ability of charging those that they discover to be in country illegally and enforcing 'their' and the nation's border with Mexico.  Incongruously, it did so while simultaneously allowing State and Local law officials to check for proper immigration status while arresting people on other non-related charges.  The federal government immediately followed that announcement with one of its own, basically telling AZ that they (or anyone else) catching someone who's in the country illegally and not a wanted felon is not going find the Feds coming to get them or do anything about it.  

Now bank robbery is a federal and not a state crime, so one cannot but wonder if under SCOTUS legal logic, local police shouldn't bother much about it either.  (Besides, with the true value of money continuing to decline, the line between felony and misdemeanor bank theft is increasingly fuzzy.)  Kidnapping is also mostly escalated to a federal crime, so this may provide another rather gray area for local law enforcement's relationship with its federal brethren.  For those of you who capitalize both United and States when writing it, this can be read as nothing less than casting aside the Tenth Amendment, which should probably now read:

"Those powers not delegated to the United States (and of no real interest to them) nor prohibited by it to the States (or by Executive order, federal regulation, or the whim of the resident in the White House or his minions in Homeland Security or the DOJ) , are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people (until such time as the federal government shall take notice of them and decide otherwise)."

It's been a long time since State sovereignty has been dealt such a crushing blow, with the courts telling States in effect not to attempt to enforce federal laws created for their protection which were passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President (even if the Federal law enforcement  doesn't) and those Feds thumbing their noses and telling States "Nyah, Nyah, Nyah".  

Now I know that the President is in full campaign mode these days, and that perhaps making up percentage points in Hispanic districts might bolster the support that he's apparently lost from other groups in recent months.  I find it difficult to understand however that such a savvy campaigner as the President doesn't remember that Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California have about 104 electoral votes and might not be happy to see their States remain open battlegrounds (and not just for votes). 

Now coming from Chicago, it's possible that the President has likewise forgotten that dead people (which the DOJ is simultaneously attempting to block being removed from voter rolls in Florida) and those here illegally are not allowed to vote (at least in theory); and so cannot help him, except perhaps with improperly documented campaign contributions. (Anybody checked lately to see what La Raza has kicked into the coffers?)

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SCOTUS will likewise be releasing its decision on the Patients Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act on Thursday this week, with those on both sides of the issue salivating over the potential of demonizing a 'political court' and their political opposition.  While this may be a harder case to make for the federal government after getting their way in Arizona and regardless of the decision; the repercussions of this yet-to-be-released decision will begin and not end the process of what will come later.   No matter which way the decision falls, the fight will go on.  Few if any are talking about the fact that what has become known as Obamacare has a couple of provisions worth keeping if it's struck down, or a few that demand dismantling if it's retained.

That's the damn problem with these omnibus bills like PPAHA however.  Political parties get so wrapped up in having scored 'the big win' that they too forget the impact of their actions.  Bills with thousands of pages will never be fully read or understood until long after they've been signed into law.  By the time SCOTUS gets around to them (if they ever do), they have become like a diagnosed but untreated cancer, and have infected so much around them that their damage can never truly be reversed. 

Unfortunately, many of the same positive results of this unfortunate law could have been achieved if they had been sought through reform legislation specifically designed to address the most egregious issues only; and it's likely that they might have been accomplished with bi-partisan support.  That wouldn't have achieved the 'in your face' political victory for whichever political party is in power over their opponents however.  Besides, as they tell themselves by way of disingenuous apology, it's OK to throw all this shit onto the wall and see what eventually sticks.  After all, there's always SCOTUS to sort it all out. 

I don't know about you, but that kind of thinking is not only cowardly and a disgrace to the oath of office that each legislator took upon election, but is a shirking of their responsibilities on a scale that can only be responded to by chasing them out of office at the first available opportunity.

While we're at it ....  

Call me cynical, but it also seems almost cowardly of the nine Justices, all of whom sit with a lifetime appointment, to release such monumental decisions (decisions whose legal precedent will impact generations to come) only days before skulking out of town for their summer break.  I'm not saying that these decisions would likely have been more palatable if they had not come out until August or September, but I might have felt better about the Supreme Robes if I knew that they were sweating them out (literally and figuratively) in the heat and humidity of a Washington DC summer.  Considering the pain that's being handed out by this court of last resorts, I for one would feel better if I knew that they had suffered over the conclusions that they've come to.

Yes it's a big week indeed for the Supreme Court of the United States.  How bad a one it is for the citizens of this nation, we have yet to understand.

SCOTUS v Patients Affordable Healthcare Act

The Supreme Court has now heard testimony and has probably even reached a judgment regrading the “Patients Affordable Healthcare Act”; though we're going to have to wait to know what it is until they finish writing their learned opinions on the subject. We're told by our President that it would be wrong because of the current crisis in healthcare in this country (a statement he later performed the Olympic backpedal on), for SCOTUS to even consider striking down the law.

There are a great many things wrong with this statement however, and that makes it hard to know where to begin responding to it. But let me try this simple one … Bullshit! I've spoken before about the responsibilities of the highest court in the land to address Constitutional issues, but let's at least get the facts straight.  The law currently under review by the court is not one designed to provide universal health care to citizens in this country and by its authors admissions, it does not. It was instead one passed in order to provide universal access to health care 'insurance' in this country. We could even say in this law's case, provide is far too tame a word; and that it's design is to mandate that everyone in this country be covered by some form of health insurance. (If not by private insurers, then by the government.) This law has far less to do with whether health care will be accessible than with who will pay for it.

Oh sure comes the response, but stop nitpicking and confess that there is in fact a crisis in healthcare in this country that must be dealt with. In fact, I do not concede this. If health care in this nation were so bad, then why does every national leader in world come to this country to receive treatments for serious illness, rather than stay in their own? Why are most medical breakthroughs made in this country rather than in others? There is no crisis of care in this country.  

There are however inequities as to access to treatments in this country based on their cost. (There are similar inequities to home ownership, automobile ownership, and luxury items.)   Where healthcare is concerned, we know that not everyone can get access to treatments that their doctors deem necessary to their continued health and perhaps even survival. Part of this has to do with health insurance industry, as issues of pre-existing conditions, approval of the treatments for general use, or cost vs efficacy continue to remain in a field filled with miracles and patent medicine. As often happens where such weighty issues where constant change is involved, there are invariably stories (some true) of seeming injustice and personal tragedy that go along with them. The question we should be asking ourselves however, is whether those in government are best suited to provide the answers to any of the questions. It's government after all, that got us into this mess in the first place.

During WWII, progressive saint President Franklin Delano Roosevelt imposed wage and price controls on the nation, in the misguided thinking that any one man or government could actually control a national economy. It and he couldn't of course, and clever employers who wanted better workers and could no longer offer them more in the way of wages, instead began to circumvent the spirit if not the letter of the law by offering benefit packages that included health care insurance to attract them. Forced by a competitive employment market, their competitors soon followed suit and another well-intentioned law was effectively bypassed, while reaping a full harvest of long-term, unintended consequences.

Skip forward some 20 years and we find ourselves in 1965 and see government enter into another well-intentioned effort, this time to provide health care insurance to seniors who were now unlikely to have it after leaving the employer who had provided it during their working career (because of the previously mentioned govt intervention). Congress therefore passed Title XVIII of the Social Security Act, better known these days as Medicare to address the issue. Not content with the scope and scale of the program however, it sought further redress and addition through program expansions in 1972, 2001.

Since providing medical insurance for our aged only (regardless of income), would be unfair to those younger who couldn't afford it, and whose employers didn't provide it, we at the same time added Title XIX to that same Social Security Act in order to provide even more potential government protection to yet another group. Of course the program known as Medicaid would be managed by the States, but with the Federal government monitoring.

These programs have existed now for some forty-seven years, and in typical government fashion their often obvious ineffectiveness is met with bureaucratic cries that the only way to fix the problem is to expand the programs. Having become the medical insurance provider for our elderly and impoverished, we must double down and make government the primary health insurance carrier for the nation. We must likewise turn control of the type and level of health coverage to what Congress believes is best for us; in spite of the fact that they will not be participating in the program.  Legislators it seems, have once more exempted themselves in favor of their own program of health care (much like they did with Social Security).

Having been told that it's wrong that we should have to deal with faceless insurance company employees and program managers, we're told that we'd be better off dealing with faceless bureaucrats instead. Having been convinced that evil insurance companies have and will provide little competence in serving our medical needs, we should instead turn our health care over to those whose efficiencies in the DMV and Post Office are legendary. Seeking to save us from being abandoned by the evil and unfeeling capitalists in the insurance industry, we should instead turn the quality of our very lives to the same government that has provided the kindness and compassion shown by those of the IRS.

Can anyone, with a straight face and a clear conscience point to something in its past or present that the government does better than the private sector in a truly free market environment? (And don’t point to national defense on me, as the limited efforts to sub-contract minor bits of even this have proven just as successful and often more cost-efficient than the government version; even with the normal graft and corruption of such contracts involved.)

No the Supreme Court should not rule against the “Patients Affordable Healthcare Act” because it extends the power of the Federal Government far beyond the limits placed on it by the Constitution.  Neither should it rule against the Act because of the current so-called health care crisis, because of the slim majorities and lack of bi-partisan support for the issue in the legislature, or because the President doesn't want them to rule his signature bit of legislation Unconstitutional (especially in an election year). Beyond all of these reasons, some more Constitutionally valid than others, they should rule against in order to save us from a government that's long proved itself incompetent under either party's rule to run such programs, and especially one that will forever place our health in its hands.

Silly Bits III

Having all but exhausted myself with a rant earlier in the week, I was reticent to attempt to annoy everyone with another bit of nonsense this week.  There were however, a couple of things continuing to annoy me like an itch that I couldn't scratch.  There are therefore going to be two weekday efforts this week (and don't you feel fortunate that this is so).

As I mentioned earlier this week rather briefly (he offered sarcastically), the President was doing a bit of public prodding of the Justices of the Supreme Court for doing their job in reviewing the Constitutional nature of the 'Patients Affordable Healthcare Act' (which of course, he and his spin masters are now hinting never really happened).  While I believe that I probably said enough about most aspects of that subject, I would like to add a couple of related comments to the previous effort, since as the week has developed the President has added even more to his list of those who he's apparently not happy with.

Oil companies were early on the list, as the President once more attempted to attack subsidies and tax breaks granted 'by law' to companies that seem to be rather profitable.  It seemed strange that he wasn't demonizing car companies that had likewise returned to profitability, and that continue to owe the government considerable sums of money, but perhaps it's because high priced cars never kept an incumbent officeholder from being re-elected, but high priced gas most surely has.  It was also curious that the President wasn't demanding that Congress remove the subsidies from Corporate farmers or institutions of higher education who are likewise dining at the government trough while maintaining their profitability.

I also found it interesting that while he was more than willing to chide SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) for fulfilling its Constitutionally mandated responsibilities, he seemed unwilling to castigate a Democratically controlled Senate for failing to do theirs.  The Senate is after all supposed to be submitting an annual budget, but has failed to do so for over 1000 days.  I suppose that he might be holding back in doing so, lest the Senate take up the question of the President's most recent recess appointments.  Such backroom agreements between the President and Senate Majority Leader, both Democrats, call for (as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once said as a Senator to General Patraeus about the Iraq War) "a suspension of disbelief".

On a completely separate but equally important note, I find myself continuing to be dismayed at the diminution of freedom in this country that has apparently fallen off the radar screens of the media and citizens.  We continue to expand the government's ability to do warrant-less wiretaps and searches, apparently have no problem with deploying federal troops to perform law enforcement functions in violation of the Posse Cumitatus Act of 1878 (as long as it's done on Federal Interstate Highways), see little problem with deploying unmanned drones to perform surveillance on its citizens, see less of a problem with killing US citizens overseas without due process (or even filing charges), and preventing citizens from speaking freely within zones of 'protection' provided by the Secret Service.

Perhaps never in this country's history has the Bill of Rights been so grossly infringed upon.  Oh sure, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War, shut down newspapers and exiled Congressman who said things he didn't like.  Sure FDR rounded up and imprisoned US citizens whose ethnic background he felt threatened by.  But you could at least you could say that we were in a 'state of war' declared by Congress.  And while many will try to make the case that the war on terrorism is just as much a danger as those previous conflicts, no such war has been legally declared by Congress (and certainly not one on US soil).  Beginning with the Patriot Act, and with continued assault on the Bill of Rights in what may be the only current example of continuing bi-partisan support, this nation can be said to have entered no less than a de facto state of martial law.  It seems, at least according to Democrats and Republicans in our current ruling class, that the only way to protect the freedom we hold dear is to surrender it a piece at a time.

If this were not despicable enough on its face, our current foreign policy is one demanding sanctions against those in other nations seeking to infringe upon the freedoms of their citizens in the very ways our own government is doing to us.  That it goes largely unnoticed by the mainstream media is tragic.  That it goes unmentioned and unchecked by leading members of both major political parties during an election year is criminal.  That it goes largely uncared about by the citizens whose freedoms are being compromised is .... just more Silly Bits.