CNN survey finds 61% are against upper chamber’s plan, 36% support it.
Conducted Dec. 2-3, error margin 3 points.
Berkeley sends wire hangers to politicians
San Francisco Chronicle
The city of Berkeley mailed coat hangers to 20 members of Congress on Wednesday in protest of the anti-abortion amendment in the House version of the federal health care bill.
The City Council approved the action 7-1 on Tuesday night. Councilman Gordon Wozniak dissented; Mayor Tom Bates was absent.
Metal coat hangers were mailed with a protest letter to members of the House of Representatives who voted in favor of the amendment but have a history of supporting abortion rights.
The amendment would ban coverage of abortion for those who would receive government-run health insurance. It would also forbid people from choosing a private plan that covers abortion if they receive federal subsidies to pay for the insurance.
Morning Bell: Obamacare is Seriously Unconstitutional
Heritage
On October 23rd, a reporter asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Speaker Pelosi shook her head and before moving on to another question replied: “Are you serious? Are you serious??” Pressed for a more substantive response later, Pelosi’s press spokesman admonished the reporter: “You can put this on the record. That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) disagrees. In 1994, the CBO said of an individual mandate to buy health insurance:
A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.
As much as Speaker Pelosi may wish otherwise, the CBO is dead on: the Supreme Court has never validated a federal power as intrusive as forcing all Americans to purchase a service due to their very existence. Sure, the Supreme Court has said that Congress may regulate a farmer’s production of wheat even if he never plans to distribute it off of his farm, and the Supreme Court has said Congress may ban the possession of Marijuana even if it is for personal use, but never before has the Supreme Court said the power to regulate commerce enabled Congress to force an individual to do something just because he existed.
In fact, the Supreme Court has always been clear that the Commerce clause must have some limits. In United States v. Lopez (1995), the Court struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act, which attempted to reach the activity of possessing a gun within a thousand feet of a school. In United States v. Morrison, it invalidated part of the Violence Against Women Act, which regulated gender-motivated violence. In both cases, the Court found the regulated activity in each case to be noneconomic; it was outside the reach of Congress’s Commerce power, regardless of its effect on interstate commerce. The case for the constitutionality of the individual mandate is far weaker than either of these two cases. Congress was at least trying to regulate an individual’s activity in the cases above. But the mandate does not purport to regulate or prohibit activity of any kind, whether economic or noneconomic. To the contrary, it purports to “regulate” inactivity.
If the individual mandate is Constitutional, then Congress could do anything. They could: require us to buy a new Chevy Impala each year to support the government-supported auto industry; require us to buy war bonds to pay for the Iraq and Afghan wars; require us to grow wheat (10 bushels each), or pay someone else to grow your share; require us to buy whatever they want.
Many on the left immediately point to state mandates that drivers purchase car insurance as proof of a mandate that all Americans buy health insurance is not new. But car insurance mandates are distinguishable in at least four ways: 1) they are state requirements and states have broader constitutional authority than the federal government; 2) they apply to drivers only, not all Americans (e.g. passengers are not required to carry insurance); 3) drivers use public roads; 4) states only require drivers to insure against injury to other drivers, not to insure themselves against personal injury.
Yesterday The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies released a Legal Memorandum written in conjunction with Georgetown University Law Center Professor Randy Barnett and Nathaniel Stewart explaining: Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional. Introducing the paper, Sen. Orrin Hatch noted:
James Madison said that if men were angels, no government would be necessary and if angels governed men, no limits on government would be necessary. Because neither men nor the governments they create are angelic, government and limits on government are both necessary for ordered liberty. Politics may tell us what we want to do, but the Constitution tells us what we may do and we must keep those separate. The ends do not justify the means for one simple reason – liberty. Liberty requires limits on government power, it always has and it always will.
Someone needs to explain this concept to Speaker Pelosi. Seriously.
Wild Thing’s comment………
I hope the polls in the future show even more against socialized medicine.
So the logic here is that if the federal government doesn’t take my money to pay for murdering babies the city of Berkley will murder them with coat hangers? Either way the people in Berkley are sub human animals.
Constitutionality never stopped communists. Dictator Obama’s empire is made up of communists. What makes this worse is they are lying that they have it in the bag behind closed doors. They will pay off enough votes. They are desperate with their communist agenda at this stage.
There were two articles I posted the other day.
Their are 2 links and 2 video clips. The Wall Street Journal had an article from a Russian Professor predicting the end of and split up of the U. S. The other from the European Union Times mentions Obama readying troops to put down sissension in the U. S. Obama sees himself as the one saving this country and creating a NWO. In fact the truth is he is systematically destroying our nation, eroding our freedoms and trampling on our constitution. There is no lacking of help from Pelosi, Reid and their minions in congress. We have to start now to out them in 2010 and finish by 2012.
Buy that ammo!!!
http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y64l12.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7j64VgM8-4
BobA, I’ve heard that before about the U.S. spliting up. We sure seem to be headed that way. The country appears to be out of control and there seems to be nothing we can do to stop it, except to seceed. Which I am sure would lead to violence.
Your right Obama sees himself as the messiah or in his case SOA. His arrogance is only exceeded by his ignorance.
Listening to Beck this morning. He talked a bit about the increase in federal wages over the past couple of years. 66,000 making over $150,000/yr. The real estate bubble has pushed up wages or COLA, I assume. With the new programs coming down the pike, carbon and healthcare, there will be a massive increase in federal hiring. And this will be at the higher wage scale of course. Wealth re-distribution?
Pelosi is an idiot. Obama is an America hating Marxist.
They are going to try to ram a healthcare(govt control) plan down out throats. It is purely unconstitutional. This should make a rebellion constitutionally legal.
Buy ammo now. Some stores are beginning to actually have some available, though the popular calibers may be in short supply.
Pelosi and the messiah are traitors and should be hung from a big ol’ Texas oak tree.
Thank you everyone,more and more as our side
has had enough we do need to make sure we
can protect ourselves. Truly anything can
happen and it won’t be just talking.