Watching the reactions from the far left liberal portion of the Democratic blogosphere and major media, their shock over the intense questioning from Supreme Court Justices over the individual mandate and whether Congress can force Americans to purchase a product, health insurance, or be penalized, has in and of itself, been shocking.Before the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare was signed into law by a then controlled Democratic House, Senate and Obama, a CNS News reporter asked then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Pelosi condescendingly responded, "Are you serious?" (Video HERE)
Constitutional concerns were ignored and generally scoffed at by all liberals as well as liberal media personalities, Democrats on the whole, and Barack Obama. Unwilling to even acknowledge the concern or give any credence to the limits of power Congress and the President have.
If the "intentions" were good, then it should be constitutional has been the mindset of liberals in regards to Obamacare since the very beginning.
John Podhoretz in The New York Post comments talks about how Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker and CNN and veteran court reporter Linda Greenhouse from the The New York Times, both scoffed at the constitutional arguments before the Supreme Court heard them, then came away afterwards completely shocked, with Toobin declaring the proceedings “a train wreck for the Obama administration.”
He nails the reason for such surprise and shock right on the head:
Thus, the strength of the conservative arguments only came as a surprise to Toobin, Greenhouse and others because they evidently spent two years putting their fingers in their ears and singing, “La la la, I’m not listening” whenever the conservative argument was being advanced.
Spot on.
Not just two years though, the constitutional arguments were made before the bill was signed into law when it became common knowledge that that Democrats and Obama were planning to force Americans to buy coverage or they would be penalized.
From February 2010 here at Wake up America before reporting how individual states were preemptively passing laws making it illegal to require aka mandate that individuals buy health insurance:
When Barack Obama first spoke about the idea of requiring each American to purchase healthcare and then news leaked that Congress and the Senate both wrote versions of Obamacare to include a health insurance "mandate", article after article from legal scholars to political pundits to news media all argued about the constitutionality of such a mandate that would not only force an individual to buy health insurance, but if the individual did not buy into it there would be a monetary fine and if the fine wasn't paid there could be jail time involved.
Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
Liberals are shocked now that the argument is being presented and argued on the grounds of constitutionality in the Supreme Court?Where the hell have they been for the past three years? That is right, they have had their hands over their ears singing la la la la, as Podhoretz mentioned.
Then we have more shock from liberals on how the comparison of Congress forcing Americans to buy one product could lead to Congress then technically having the power to force Americans to buy anything they want, including, yesssssssssss, broccoli.
Accusations of "the conservative justices are now mimicking conservative talking points" are flying out fast and furiously and again, one must ask, where the hell have they been?
That argument was presented in a lower court and the example of broccoli was used and then made part of the permanent record in a judgement against Obamacare by Florida's Federal District Judge Roger Vinson. (78 page ruling HERE) That judgment automatically made the example of broccoli part of the record and part of the case.
All this shock on the part of liberals could have been avoided had they bothered to acknowledge the validity of the constitutional challenges and issues instead of scoffing with the attitude of "are you serious'?
Liberals can no longer live in denial of the fact that there are issues of constitutionality about the Obamacare law nor that the individual mandate and possibly the whole Obamacare law itself is in jeopardy because conservatives were prepared to fight long and hard for our rights inherent in the U.S. Constitution.
Ms. Pelosi? Do you think we are serious now?
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