Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktPresident Obama is nothing if not bold. Yesterday, in an abuse of language for which there is unfortunately a great deal of precedent, the president opined on SCOTUS’s recent hearing regarding the fate of ACA.
Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress
Unprecedented and extraordinary? Really? No law passed by Congress has ever been overturned by the court before?
Politics is politics, of course, and we all know the games of semantic deception that are regularly played by politicians. But, especially for a former professor of constitutional law, this is a particularly embarrassing departure from reality. Doesn’t it debase our politics even more than is already the case to have a Chief Executive who is so shameless in his disregard for the meanings of the words he uses and the reality he pretends to describe?
Filed under: 2012, aca, Obama, Supreme Court |
All Things in Moderation 
Speaking of the meanings of words, perhaps you and he disagree on the meaning of strong majority. I can’t help but notice you left that part out of your criticism.
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bsimon:
I can’t help but notice you left that part out of your criticism.
I doubt many people would honestly agree that a 7 vote majority in the House represents a “strong majority”, but at least that has the nature of being a subjective determination, and, being more like the typical type of semantic deceit which is common among politicians, wasn’t all that notable. Trying to portray something that SOCTUS has been doing for over 200 years as “unprecedented” is simply an outright falsehood, and almost certainly a conscious one, given his previous standing as constitutional law professor. That, I think, is notable.
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“Doesn’t it debase our politics even more than is already the case to have a Chief Executive who is so shameless in his disregard for the meanings of the words he uses and the reality he pretends to describe?”
Not really. It’s typical and “Politics as Usual”. I really don’t think anyone is listening anymore. It’s just political noise at this point.
Ruth Marcus makes the same point as you in her column, and also notes that the President is embracing and validating a long standing conservative critique of the court that may come back to haunt him later. His argument applies just as much to overruling the DoMA as it does the ACA:
“Obama’s unsettling attack on the Supreme Court
By Ruth Marcus
Posted at 05:45 PM ET, 04/02/2012”
…
“And yet, Obama’s assault on “an unelected group of people” stopped me cold. Because, as the former constitutional law professor certainly understands, it is the essence of our governmental system to vest in the court the ultimate power to decide the meaning of the constitution. Even if, as the president said, it means overturning “a duly constituted and passed law.”
Of course, acts of Congress are entitled to judicial deference and a presumption of constitutionality. The decision to declare a statute unconstitutional, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in 1927, is “the gravest and most delicate duty that this court is called on to perform.”
But the president went too far in asserting that it “would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step” for the court to overturn “a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” That’s what courts have done since Marbury v. Madison. The size of the congressional majority is of no constitutional significance. We give the ultimate authority to decide constitutional questions to “a group of unelected people” precisely to insulate them from public opinion.
I would lament a ruling striking down the individual mandate, but I would not denounce it as conservative justices run amok. Listening to the arguments and reading the transcript, the justices struck me as a group wrestling with a legitimate, even difficult, constitutional question. For the president to imply that the only explanation for a constitutional conclusion contrary to his own would be out-of-control conservative justices does the court a disservice.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/obamas-unsettling-attack-on-the-supreme-court/2012/04/02/gIQA4BXYrS_blog.html
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To jnc at 8:06 am. Amen, brother. And the Marcus column that you cited is perfect-on-pitch.
I would have been embarrassed to have made the remark attributed to BHO.
********
George, the reference here is to fed statutes, not AZ or TX.
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jnc/Mark:
Is there any level of rhetorical deception that a president might engage in that you think goes beyond “politics as usual”?
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Is there any level of rhetorical deception that a president might engage in that you think goes beyond “politics as usual”?
Unfortunately, not. That is not to say I excuse it and I think BHO deserves rich criticism for it.
I do not know which of the many, many, rhetorical deceptions our POTUSes have engaged in were more or less blameworthy than this one. I guess I would start with the Watergate cover-up and say there were hundreds of lies to cover a crime, and put that both at the top of my list and at the beginning of my deep skepticism.
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Scott, he says unprecedented; you say that’s an exaggeration. What’s the precedent? I.e. when’s the last time SCOTUS overturned a law that passed Congress by an equal or larger majority?
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bsimon:
Scott, he says unprecedented; you say that’s an exaggeration.
No, I say it is a lie.
What’s the precedent?
Marbury v Madison, 1803. It was a landmark case, one surely not unknown to a constitutional law professor.
when’s the last time SCOTUS overturned a law that passed Congress by an equal or larger majority?
McCain-Feingold comes to mind, in what is commonly known as the Citizens United decision. You may remember it. It featured rather prominently in one of Obama’s SOTU addresses, so I’m pretty sure he remembers it. It passed the House by a vote of 240-189.
Unprecedented indeed.
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“bsimon1970, on April 3, 2012 at 8:06 am said: Edit Comment
Scott, he says unprecedented; you say that’s an exaggeration. What’s the precedent? I.e. when’s the last time SCOTUS overturned a law that passed Congress by an equal or larger majority?”
Given that President Obama is arguing for the Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional, that would be a clear example. It passed with a much larger majority than the ACA did. And of course Citzens United.
I think the unspoken argument in the President’s comments is that overturning an entitlement program is unprecedented since the New Deal at least.
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Anytime SCOTUS overturns a law it does it to one passed by a majority and signed by the President. In fact it’s been done 51 times in the last 40 years.
I guess the AZ immigration law and the Texas Voter ID law we’re passed by “weak” majorities. Pity, if only they’d reached that crucial 7 vote SuperMajority status and no opposition party votes they would escape the Marbury v Madison juggernaut.
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“I think the unspoken argument in the President’s comments is that overturning an entitlement program is unprecedented since the New Deal at least.”
I think last week, if nothing else, showed just how flawed those New Deal rulings are.
“The power to regulate interstate commerce includes the power to regulate the prices at which commodities in that commerce are dealt in and practices affecting such prices”
What utter horseshit.
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I know Mark, it was a “Tis for thee, not for me” type of snark. Maybe the Flag Burning law would have been a good example, “stronger” majorities than Obamacare.
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More on the reaction
http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/02/left-commentariat-the-supreme-court-the
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Troll:
Do you have a link to a list of the 51 laws that have been overturned in the last 40 years? I’m curious to see what kinds of laws these were.
I supposed I could do the Google thing myself …
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Mike:
I don’t have a full list, but here is another example of a federal law being overturned just during Obama’s tenure in office. Like Citizen’s United, it is hard to believe that Obama wasn’t aware of it, given that a mere 8 months after the ruling he signed legislation specifically designed to get around SCOTUS’s objections to the original law.
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Scott:
Sure, I know about Stevens and Boumediene, which overturned the MCA of 2006. But I was surprised that there were 51 in 40 years — more than one per year.
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Mike:
But I was surprised that there were 51 in 40 years — more than one per year.
Pure speculation on my part, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the frequency picked up following FDR, with an increasingly emboldened congress/executive more than willing to push at the margins of constitutional powers.
Culminating, of course, in the absurdity of GWB questioning a bill’s constitutionality even as he signed it into law.
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Scott:
I obviously have too much time on my hands right now. Here’s a list of the Acts of Congress overturned in part or in whole by SCOTUS decision up until 1997.
The list doesn’t include Citizens United, Boumediene, McConnell v. FEC, FEC v. WI Right to Life, Davis v. FEC, US v. Booker, and Free Enterprise Fund.
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” Unprecedented indeed.”
Good examples. TMW, your examples are of state laws; a different category of legislation; which I would expect to be overturned more frequently than fed legislation.
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He might as well have said: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”
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Mike, sorry, the best I can do is to say “I saw it on the Internet” here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/295084/poisoning-well-jonah-goldberg
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This isn’t just an exaggeration; it’s a huge, brazen, outlandish lie, on a par with his SOTU lie that Citizens United overturned decades of precedent. Obama just thinks he can say whatever he wants, and if he says it, it isn’t a lie.
“TMW, your examples are of state laws; a different category of legislation; which I would expect to be overturned more frequently than fed legislation.”
There really is no constitutional basis for that distinction. The presumption of validity afforded to acts of Congress is a court invention.
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Btw, it isn’t hard to pierce through all this nonsense about “judicial activism” being put out by Obama and his spokesmen like Sargent.
Just honestly ask yourself which side is having to conjure up arguments that are outside the ordinary meaning of the words of Commerce Clause. Which side is trying to find ways to say that someone who isn’t doing anything is engaged in “interstate commerce” that needs to be regulated?
Which faction on the Court is going to vote for that kind of linguistic and metaphysical contortion, and which side is going to vote based on the actual words?
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Troll:
OK, thanks. Guess I’ll have to go digging myself.
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” The presumption of validity afforded to acts of Congress is a court invention.”
So what? The notion that SCOTUS is the final arbiter is likewise a court invention.
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“So what? The notion that SCOTUS is the final arbiter is likewise a court invention.”
You’ll need to explain what you mean by that if you want a response. (Don’t presume it is self-evident.)
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“ScottC, on April 3, 2012 at 9:04 am said:
jnc/Mark:
Is there any level of rhetorical deception that a president might engage in that you think goes beyond “politics as usual”?”
With regards to the usual flip flop between respecting the will of the democratic majority as acting through their elected representatives vs the role of the federal judiciary as the ultimate arbitrators of what is constitutional, both parties will trot out whichever procedural arguments fit the substantive position they want upheld. Bush v Gore was a classic example of this.
With regards to the President’s rhetoric itself, the “unprecedented” comment is small potatoes compared to his administration’s past comments about having the “most transparent administration ever” or “the Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process”
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/30/the_most_transparent_administration_ever%E2%84%A2/singleton/
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/03/eric-holder-targeted-killing
I have such low expectations of the President’s rhetoric to begin with, that it’s almost impossible to disappoint me and I believe that at this point most people are tuning him out as well in terms of what he says vs what he does.
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QB and Bsimon – absent the doctrine of judicial review, the presumption of validity would be irrebuttable. The two concepts are thus intertwined.
In the presence of judicial review, one could posit judicial review and no presumption of validity, but that would make the oath that congress takes meaningless, and would place the risk of non persuasion on the government as to every law challenged.
Under the circumstances, I take the rebuttable presumption of validity to be darn near a self evident conclusion drawn from separation of powers and the doctrine of judicial review. BTW, I take judicial review to be an intended consequence from the FFs.
Scott, if I was not clear, his use of the word “unprecedented” does make it a lie. Cornered, he would probably suggest that he should have used the word “unusual” which is defensible. But that is why Marcus’ criticism is more cogent – even if he used the word “unusual” taking potshots at the Supremes for not ruling as a pol wants is low level stuff whether it comes from Gingrich or Obama.
One of the favorite liberal complaints is about the case of Bush v. Gore. The fact is, if it had been properly briefed by either side, and the Supremes had refused jurisdiction, and if the FL Supremes had set aside the official count, at the deadline the HoR would have elected GWB POTUS. Perhaps the Court tried to short circuit that, but they did not “elect” GWB. Of course, if it had gone to Congress, the Senate might have elected Gore VP. In which case he would have been the presiding officer of the Senate with no other duties assigned to him for 4 years.
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“bsimon1970, on April 3, 2012 at 9:59 am said:
” The presumption of validity afforded to acts of Congress is a court invention.”
So what? The notion that SCOTUS is the final arbiter is likewise a court invention.”
Overturning or disregarding Marbury v Madison would be a much more “unprecedented, extraordinary step” than invalidating the ACA or even returning to the original understanding of the commerce clause.
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“ScottC, on April 3, 2012 at 10:12 am said:”
…
“Culminating, of course, in the absurdity of GWB questioning a bill’s constitutionality even as he signed it into law.”
Hence my cynicism. See also Medicare Part D.
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The one identified by jnc — DOMA — alone shows that Obama’s statement not only is false but that Obama is being dishonest and disingenuous about it.
He himself takes the position that DOMA is not a valid exercise of Congress’ powers and is hence unconstitutional.
Good heavens, what a dissembler.
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“quarterback, on April 3, 2012 at 10:27 am said:
The one identified by jnc — DOMA — alone shows that Obama’s statement not only is false but that Obama is being dishonest and disingenuous about it.
He himself takes the position that DOMA is not a valid exercise of Congress’ powers and is hence unconstitutional.
Good heavens, what a dissembler.”
I’d go further. Refusing to defend a statute that was duly passed and signed into law by a previous administration from a court challenge is a more “radical” approach than the Supreme Court overturning it, in that it potentially allows a subsequent administration to nullify valid laws by refusing to defend them.
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Greg Sargent makes a worthwhile point:
“I’m not defending Obama’s claim that overturning the law would be “unprecedented” — it wouldn’t — but as “attacks” go, this is pretty weak sauce. And it’s a bit surprising to hear so much whining about it, given the attacks on “activist” judges conservatives have waged for years.
If you really want to hear an “attack” on the court, go check out F.D.R.’s 1937 address, in which he accused the Court of wanting to banish the nation to a “No-Man’s Land of final futility.” Or check out his Fireside Chat about his court-packing scheme, in which he warned that it was time to “save the Constitution from the Court” and accused the courts of operating in “direct contradiction of the high purposes of the framers of the Constiution.” ”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/pass-the-smelling-salts-obama-attacked-scotus/2012/04/03/gIQA7VpAtS_blog.html
I actually agree with Sargent. Compared to what FDR did and more importantly tried to do but didn’t get away with, Obama’s rhetoric here is relatively insignificant, even though it’s inaccurate.
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Approximately 100 of the 166-ish reversals have come after FDR. Bolger, in 1983, invalidated part of the Comstock Act (1873). The 1920s and 1930s in particular seemed to be pretty busy — 16 and 14 reversals, respectively.
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“markinaustin, on April 3, 2012 at 10:57 am said:
…
BTW, I take judicial review to be an intended consequence from the FFs.”
Not just that, but back in the old days constitutional amendments were passed to correct perceived constitutional defects pretty readily. If judicial review, as implemented by Marbury v Madison, was truly viewed as incompatible with the design of the separation of powers in the Constitution, it probably would have been rectified by amendment by now. It’s certainly as significant as say the direct election of U.S. Senators.
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Mark,
I agree that judicial review and the presumption are related; indeed, I would say that but for the former the latter would not exist.
I disagree, however, that the oath of office would be meaningless under judicial review without the presumption. In fact, I see no relationship between them.
The issue of the burden of persuasion and a presumption is complex and one I am not prepared at the moment to plumb, but your point really does not trouble me. Article 1 grants specific powers to Congress. If its act is not within those powers, it is ultra vires. I do not think that decisions like this come down to burdens or presumptions very often if at all. I have more of a legal realist view that these concepts are deployed more to justify results than to guide them. And I am not troubled by the idea that the government should have to justify its exercise of power. Not troubled at all.
Finally, like you I take judicial review to be virtually self-evident (I would say near-explicit from the jurisdiction clause), although the consequences of judicial review can be debated. I do not, however, take the presumption of validity to be at all implicit or self-evident. I see nothing in the separation of powers that entails such a doctrine. If anything, I would say that there is a better argument against a presumption. The founders were not so worried in allocating the coordinate powers with the overreaching of the Court as with the overreaching of Congress.
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I am confident that, tomorrow, the sun will not take the unprecedented, extraordinary step of rising in the east.
The president has been reading too many books on persuasion (or his speech writers have) and is trying too hard the build a narrative frame around uncooperative facts. Not only would such a ruling not be extraordinary, the individual mandate, as argued, is a weak link in the chain than an unfriendly court (and even some friendlies) might easily find unconstitutional, whereas a non-compliance tax that amounted to the same thing would have been, if I’m not mistaken, entirely constitutional. But also called a “tax”.
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The taxing power was historically understood to be subject to the enumerated powers. The New Deal court decided that this was inconvenient to the assumption of plenary Congressional power. But the New Deal reinterpretation is exceedingly hard to justify.
It also isn’t the case that it would be treated as a tax if it were just called a tax. Being called a penalty of course doesn’t help, but a penalty labeled a tax is still a penalty as well.
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qb:
It also isn’t the case that it would be treated as a tax if it were just called a tax. Being called a penalty of course doesn’t help, but a penalty labeled a tax is still a penalty as well.
This was sort of the point I was trying to make the other day in the last two paragraphs.
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Even the NYT piles on President Obama’s comments:
April 3, 2012, 3:57 pm
The President Fumbles the Court Issue
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/the-president-fumbles-the-court-issue/
Note this passage:
“Judges, in the nation’s system of separated powers, are assigned a distinct role, and it is not to be politicians in black robes. The protection of Americans’ rights depends on having independent and fair-minded judges willing to strike down laws that trample on the Bill of Rights or otherwise overstep the constitutional powers of the executive branch—even when it may not be the popular thing to do. What courts should not do is second-guess legislative judgments that are well-within Congress’s proper authority, based on ideological or policy differences.”
Of course as always, the fight is over what is “well-within Congress’s proper authority”
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President Obama clarifies “unprecedented”. Overturning an entitlement program is what he meant:
“MR. SINGLETON: Mr. President, you said yesterday that it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress. But that is exactly what the Court has done during its entire existence. If the Court were to overturn individual mandate, what would you do, or propose to do, for the 30 million people who wouldn’t have health care after that ruling?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, let me be very specific. We have not seen a Court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on a economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce — a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner. Right? So we’re going back to the ’30s, pre New Deal.
And the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this.
Now, as I said, I expect the Supreme Court actually to recognize that and to abide by well-established precedence out there. I have enormous confidence that in looking at this law, not only is it constitutional, but that the Court is going to exercise its jurisprudence carefully because of the profound power that our Supreme Court has. As a consequence, we’re not spending a whole bunch of time planning for contingencies. ”
He should start planning.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/03/remarks-president-associated-press-luncheon
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jnc:
He should start planning.
My guess is that he was lying about that, too.
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jnc (from the article):
what would you do, or propose to do, for the 30 million people who wouldn’t have health care after that ruling?
BTW, I don’t know who Mr. Singleton is, but this is a good example of the way the media aids Obama and the left in their efforts to deceptively frame the debate. The absence of insurance does not mean the absence of health care. It’s a falsehood to say 30 million people will be without health care, even by the logic of ACA’s defenders, who repeatedly claim that ACA is needed to lower the cost to the system that these uninsured people already impose on the health care system.
I hate it when journalists incorporate lies into their assumptions and then lob softballs at the politicians that made up the lie in the first place.
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Associated Press outgoing chairman Dean Singleton was the moderator at the Associated Press Luncheon.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/04/ap-chair-gives-glowing-obama-intro-119505.html
He’s pretty clearly biased in President Obama’s favor but I cut him some slack on that as he did put the core question to President Obama directly and clearly:
“Mr. President, you said yesterday that it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress. But that is exactly what the Court has done during its entire existence.”
Unfortunately you have to try to hold President Obama accountable with the press corps you have, not the one you might want or have at a later time.
Despite this, polls still show a majority of people oppose the bill and think it’s unconstitutional and also will be found so by the court.
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jnc:
Unfortunately you have to try to hold President Obama accountable with the press corps you have, not the one you might want or have at a later time.
Hah. Good one.
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This is tortured reasoning:
“And the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress.”
Can we demystify this? He is saying that the SCt should abstain from exercising its “final say,” because the Constitution assigns it that final say.
That is high-octane nonsense.
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Nonsense has octane levels? I would hope that you know that octane >< power.
More to the point. Conservatives around here are getting in high dudgeon over Obama daring to criticize a court decision. I wonder if the following quote would generate such ire:
"Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people's voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our Nation must defend the sanctity of marriage."
Scott deserves credit for noting that there is a great deal of precedent for such statements as that of Obama. I'm not as bothered by the notion of overturning the mandate as I am by justices parroting talking points.
Then again, the mandate is a conservative idea. Mind you, the Heritage Foundation is pretty much dial-an-idea. Pay them money, and they'll put a conservative gloss on whatever you want them to say. And say the opposite thing four years later. Polly wants an endowment.
BB
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FB:
Conservatives around here are getting in high dudgeon over Obama daring to criticize a court decision.
You should read more carefully. No one here is in high dudgeon because Obama “dares to criticize a court decision.” We are slamming Obama for buffoonishly misrepresenting the history of the court in his attempt to influence it before a decision has even been issued.
I wonder if the following quote would generate such ire:
I wonder why someone might think it would, given that, apart from using words in English, it bears no resemblance to what has generated our criticism of Obama.
Then again, the mandate is a conservative idea.
The Supremes certainly have nothing on you when it comes to “parroting talking points”.
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FB:
BTW, I recommend you look at this, paying particular attention to 2.
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Been busy, but wanted to weigh in late here. The original statement was utter crap. Either he was imprecise or actually meant exactly what he said. Under either scenario, I suppose there is some middle ground although I’m not sure exactly what that is, the statement was crap. In addition to being of dubious legal accuracy (I’m being generous), it feeds into the talking point we’ve heard from qb about Obama wanting more and more power. Obama’s opponents can say he’s trying to intimidate and influence the decision and undermine the role of the SCOTUS. It also plays into the talking point that Obama ignores the Constitution. I don’t agree that the statement goes that far, but it certainly provides fodder for Obama opponents.
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Apparently, the Fifth Circuit has taken notice of BHO’s remarks.
“A panel of Circuit Court judges, reacting to President Obama’s questioning of federal courts’ authority to strike down some or all of the new health care law, on Tuesday demanded that the government spell out its intentions if a court should do so. In a brief order, the Fifth Circuit Court ordered a Justice Department lawyer to file a letter by midday tomorrow on the issue.
The order refers only to oral comments made at a Tuesday hearing by Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith, testing a Justice Department lawyer directly on the comments the President made to reporters at the White House on Monday. (CBS News, in this news article, has a link to the oral argument audio and a full description of what Judge Smith had said, and the government lawyer’s response.)”
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Scott – Bullshit. Gingrich’s entire campaign at one point was built upon his faulty critique of the Court and you didn’t breathe a word of dissent. Ah, but Obama dare make a case of it and you’re out there with your Santoku knife.
We’ve already established that you will deliberately distort the dictionary definition of a word to suit your political needs. To complain about another doing it is, well, you know…
BB
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FB:
Bullshit.
What, exactly, is bullshit? (Sorry, I know how you hate having questions asked of you, but, really, this needs clarification.)
Gingrich’s entire campaign at one point was built upon his faulty critique of the Court…
Do tell.
…and you didn’t breathe a word of dissent.
What in the wide, wide world of sports does that have to do with what generated my/our criticism of Obama?
Ah, but Obama dare make a case of it…
Obama hasn’t made a case for anything. He simply lied about the history of the court.
We’ve already established that you will deliberately distort the dictionary definition of a word to suit your political needs.
We have? When? (Again, sorry for the inconvenience of questions requiring you to actually substantiate the things you say, but again, its sort of necessary.)
To complain about another doing it is, well, you know…
What are you talking about? I have accused Obama of lying about the history of the court, not distorting the dictionary definition of a word.
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Nonsense has octane levels? I would hope that you know that octane >< power
Brilliant. Really. Just a forensic tour de force.
More to the point. Conservatives around here are getting in high dudgeon over Obama daring to criticize a court decision.
You are being disingenuous. The criticism is for Obama’s false claim that invalidating the mandate would be unprecedented, etc. It’s a patent lie. A Big Lie.
Scott deserves credit for noting that there is a great deal of precedent for such statements as that of Obama.
I don’t know what you are talking about that Scott said, but there is no precedent for Obama’s lie.
I’m not as bothered by the notion of overturning the mandate as I am by justices parroting talking points
You must not have read many opinions by Justices like Marshall, Brennan, and Stevens.
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