Dear GOP, FUCK YOU.

SCUM, LIARS AND HYPOCRITES.
You cant repeal Obamacare? 
Even the ones that voted for repeal knew it would not pass, so did they even want it to pass?
We need term limits and to start primarying  the traitors out.

Ted Cruz And Mike Lee Expose The Filthy Lying Republicans That Will Allow Obamacare To Survive

WikiLeaks: Hillary Clinton Bribed Republicans to Influence Election

Journalism School Challenges Media to Get Tougher on California’s Obamacare Exchange

Fresh on the heels of The Daily Signal’s two-part investigation into Covered California, the Columbia Journalism Review launched its own probe asking why more news outlets haven’t taken a critical look at the largest Obamacare state exchange.

In an article titled, “Why we need stronger coverage of Covered California,” Columbia Journalism Review reporter Trudy Lieberman writes:

[P]ress coverage has largely followed the lead set by the [Covered California] exchange. The result is coverage that has too often been reactive, short on enterprise, and with missed opportunities to ask some necessary questions. Covered California may ultimately have a success story to tell—but it will need to face some sharper skepticism before we can be sure.

Many in the news media have simply reported information from Covered California’s own press releases. They’ve paid little attention to trouble facts such as Covered California’s enrollment: It increased only...

Hillary Clinton Wants To Give Americans’ Healthcare to Millions of Illegals, Says Chelsea Clinton

Hillary Clinton wants American taxpayers to pay for the healthcare of all illegal immigrants who get into the United States, Chelsea Clinton told a health-care salesman.

Clinton “thinks it’s so important to extend the Affordable Care Act to people who are living and working here, regardless of immigration status, regardless of citizenship status,” Chelsea told the advocate March 15, at an event in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Roughly 14 million illegal immigrants are living in the United States, alongside 310 million Americans, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

Donald Trump quickly denounced the move.

American taxpayers pay roughly $5,000 per year for each person enrolled in Obamacare. So the addition of only 10 million current illegals to Obamacare would cost taxpayers at least $50 billion per year, or $500 billion over 10 years, partly because many migrants lack workplace skills or even the ability to speak English.

But Clinton has also promised she will largely stop deportations of foreigners who sneak into the United States. “I would not deport children. I do not want to deport family members either,” she said at a March 9 Latino political rally hosted by Univision and theWashington Post.

If Clinton’s open-borders policy encourages more migrants to enter the United States, American taxpayers will have to divert funding from their relatives — retirees, children, unemployed and disabled — to pay for the healthcare of many more millions of foreign people who choose to...

English-Speaking Obamacare Clerks Paid Half As Much As Foreigners

It’s not enough that American jobs are being taken by illegals. It’s

not enough that being bi-lingual has now become a job qualification that now exempts most Americans from many jobs in our society or, at a minimum, provides a preference to a non-American. Now we learn that foreigner federal employees are being paid better as well, much better.

A group called ProEnglish, an advocate for English as our “common, unifying language, and its adoption as “the official language at all levels of government,” filed multiple Freedom of Information requests for information relating to the pay scales for Obamacare clerks at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

They discovered that once again, Americans are treated as second class citizens in their own country, with English-speaking clerks making only about half of what their Spanish-speaking counterparts are paid. Native language speakers were found to earn $12 per hour, while those classified as translators, speaking only in Spanish, were paid over twice as much, an hourly rate of $22.75 plus an additional monthly stipend of $643.

In addition to the lower pay offered to English speakers, the documents revealed that almost 12 percent of the $90 million contract went specifically to the...

The IRS vs. the Church

The IRS targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups prior to the 2012 election was an unconscionable abuse of power for which accountability and punishment have been noticeably absent. But this was and is not the only use by the Obama administration of the power to tax to attempt to destroy its political opponents.

The IRS is also involved in targeting what President Obama has called “less than loving” Christians through the mandates of ObamaCare and its attack on the free exercise of religion through the attempted coercion of mandated health insurance coverage  This administration’s war on religion is also seen in the monitoring of Christian churches by the IRS in response to a lawsuit filed on December 27, 2012 by the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF)  concerning sermons that are considered by the political left  to be political speech by tax-exempt organization in alleged violation of federal law. These sermons, often criticizing ObamaCare’s encroachment on freedom of religion through its mandates among other issues, are considered electioneering by the atheist left.

The FFRF sought enforcement by the IRS of the 1954 Johnson Amendment which states that tax-exempt groups, including churches, are not allowed to endorse political candidates. But the FFRF stretches that law to interpret churches taking positions from the...

A List of Obama’s Constitutional Violations

Updated 8/04/13 “I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution.”  Barrack Hussein Obama.  Obama took the Presidential Oath, swearing to “.. preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” but has:

• Used Executive Privilege in regards to Fast & Furious gun running scandal. When Government misconduct is the concern Executive privilege is negated.
• 23 Executive Orders on gun control - infringement of the 2nd Amendment
• Executive Order bypassing Congress on immigration – Article 1 Section 1, ALL Legislative power held by Congress
• NDAA – Section 1021. Due process Rights negated.  Violation of 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Amendments.
• Executive Order 13603 NDRP – Government can seize anything
• Executive Order 13524 – Gives INTERPOL jurisdiction on American soil beyond law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.
• Executive Order 13636 Infrastructure Cybersecurity – Bypassing Congress Article 1 Section 1, ALL Legislative power held by Congress
• Signed into law the establishment of  NO Free Speech zones – noncompliance is a felony. Violation of 1st Amendment.
• Attempt to tax political contributions – 1st Amendment
• DOMA Law – Obama directed DOJ to ignore the Constitution and separation of powers and not enforce the law.
• Dodd-Frank – Due process and separation of powers. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau writing and interpreting law. Article. I. Section. 1
• Drone strikes on American Citizens – 5th Amendment Due process Rights negated
• Bypassed Congress and gave EPA power to advance Cap-n-Trade
• Attempt for Graphic tobacco warnings (under appeal) – 1st Amendment
• Four Exec. appointments – Senate was NOT in recess (Court has ruled unconstitutional yet the appointees still remain)
• Appointing agency czars without the “advice and consent of the Senate.”  Violation of Article II, Section 2
• Obama took Chairmanship of UN Security Council – Violation of Section 9.
• Obamacare (ACA) mandate – SCOTUS had to make it a tax because there is no Constitutional authority for Congress to force Americans to engage in commerce.
• Contraceptive, abortifacients mandate violation of First Ammendment
• Healthcare waivers – No president has dispensing powers
• Refuses to acknowledge state’s 10th Amendment rights to nullify Obamacare
• Going after states (AZ lawsuit) for upholding Federal law (immigration) -10th Amendment.
• Chrysler Bailout -TARP - violated creditors rights and bankruptcy law, as well as Takings and Due Process Clauses – 5th Amendment (G.W. Bush also illegally used TARP funds for bailouts)
• The Independent Payment Advisory Board (appointees by the president). Any decisions by IPAB will instantly become law starting in 2014 – Separation of Powers, Article 1 Section 1.
• Congress did not approve Obama’s war in Libya. Article I, Section 8, First illegal war U.S. has engaged in. Impeachable under Article II, Section 4.
• Obama falsely claims UN can usurp Congressional war powers.
• Obama has acted outside the constitutional power given him – this in itself is unconstitutional.
• With the approval of Obama, the NSA and the FBI are tapping directly into the servers of 9 internet companies to gain access to emails, video/audio, photos, documents, etc. This program is code named PRISM. NSA also collecting data on all phone calls in U.S. – Violation of 4th Amendment.
• Plans to sign U.N. Firearms treaty – 2nd Amendment.
• The Senate/Obama immigration bill (approved by both) raises revenue – Section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives;
• Obama refuses to uphold the Business Mandate Law (ACA) for a year.  President does not have that authority – Article. I. Section. 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States. The president ”shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed” -Article II, Section 3.

A Constitutional law professor (even their students) should know better.  The TRUTH is Obama was a speaker not a law professor, and clearly he has not respected or protected the Constitution. Obama has broken his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Article II, Section 1.

The growing nebulous of Obama’s scandals are sure to add to his Constitutional violations. <click here> for Obama’s scandals

Source: http://tisaboutfreedom.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/a-list-of-obamas-constitutional-violations/

ObamaCare Psychological Test For Gun Ownership

OBAMACARE - Curing Mental Instability In The United Socialist States

Obamacare Increases Costs And Reduces Services

We cannot afford politicians that support Obamacare, We cannot afford Charlie Crist.

The Price of Obamacare

Obama has Proposed 442 Tax Hikes Since Taking Office

Since taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama has formally proposed a total of 442 tax increases, according to an Americans for Tax Reform analysis of Obama administration budgets for fiscal years 2010 through 2015.

The 442 total proposed tax increases does not include the 20 tax increases Obama signed into law as part of Obamacare.

“History tells us what Obama was able to do. This list reminds us of what Obama wanted to do,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

The number of proposed tax increases per year is as follows:

-79 tax increases for FY 2010

-52 tax increases for FY 2011

-47 tax increases for FY 2012

-34 tax increases for FY 2013

-137 tax increases for FY 2014

-93 tax increases for FY 2015

Perhaps not coincidentally, the Obama budget with the lowest number of proposed tax increases was released during an election year: In February 2012, Obama released his FY 2013 budget, with “only” 34 proposed tax increases. Once safely re-elected, Obama came back with a vengeance, proposing 137 tax increases, a personal record high for the 44th President.

In addition to the 442 tax increases in his annual budget proposals, the 20 signed into law as part of Obamacare, and the massive tobacco tax hike signed into law on the sixteenth day of his presidency, Obama has made it clear he is open to other broad-based tax increases.

During an interview with Men’s Health in 2009, when asked about the idea of national tax on soda and sugary drinks, the President said, "I actually think it's an idea that we should be exploring."

During an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood in 2010, Obama said a European-style Value-Added-Tax was “something that would be novel for the United States.”

Obama’s statement was consistent with a pattern of remarks made by Obama White House officials refusing to rule out a VAT.

“Presidents are judged by history based on what they did in power. But presidents can only enact laws when the Congress agrees,” said Norquist. "Thus a record forged by such compromise tells you what a president -- limited by congress -- did rather than what he wanted to do.”

The full list of proposed Obama tax increases can be found here. 

Read more: http://www.atr.org/obama-has-proposed-442-tax-hikes-taking-office#ixzz2yuSUWyAz

Politicizing Your Health Care Records..

Under the guise of expanding Americans’ access to healthcare, “the federal government is planning to quietly enact what could be the largest consolidation of personal data in the history of the republic,” Stephen T. Parente and Paul Howard asserted in a USA Today column. That consolidation is called the Federal Data Services Hub, and it is being assembled as part of ObamaCare’s insurance exchange implementation.

Beginning in 2014, Americans who want to obtain federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance will have to buy their coverage through state insurance exchanges, most of which will be run by the federal government because the majority of states declined to establish them on their own. As is typical of government programs, the exchanges will be difficult for average Americans to understand, so the Obama administration is planning to hire “tens of thousands” of “navigators” earning “$20 an hour or more” to help guide them to their taxpayer-funded coverage, according to the Washington Examiner.

Expert: Even doubling all income taxes won’t cover the LOWEST cost estimate of socialist ‘BernieCare’

If Democrats are anything, they are massive hypocrites, as evidenced by their healthcare policies.

On the one hand, they fight tooth and nail to preserve Obamacare, which has seen enrollment fall to new lows (just 8.5 million enrollees) this year. Yet, they back a new socialist system that would toss 180 million Americans off of private health insurance most enjoy and don’t even bat an eye.

What’s more, while they lament the cost of private health insurance, they have no problems foisting a socialist system on us (call it “BernieCare”) that would cost taxpayers tens of trillions of dollars and still not be any good.

First things first: The reason why private coverage remains high is because of government and its volumes of regulations on both the healthcare and health insurance industries. Obamacare’s requirements alone have dramatically driven up the cost of monthly premiums and deductibles.

And remember when the law’s namesake claimed (lied) that his signature legislation would lower our premiums, deductibles, and overall healthcare costs?

Without question, having government take over most of healthcare has been an expensive disaster; having the government take it over completely would collapse the system, not to mention give government entirely too much power and influence over our lives.

But the expense is the big country killer, as Charles Blahous, a senior research strategist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, said this week, per the Washington Free Beacon.

“Doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax would be insufficient to finance” Medicare for All, which is the essence of BernieCare:

Blahous spoke before the House Rules Committee about “Medicare for All,” the health care plan proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and supported by several 2020 Democratic candidates. Blahous estimated the cost is between $32.6 trillion and $38.8 trillion.

“Medicare for All would add somewhere between $32.6 trillion and...

Obama Care Smoking Penalties are Coming

Experts say millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties under President Barack Obama's health care law

The Affordable Care Act allows health insurers to charge smokers buying an individual policy up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1.

A 60-year-old smoker could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of normal premiums.

Younger smokers could be charged lower penalties under rules proposed last fall by the Obama administration.

Workers with job-based coverage can avoid tobacco penalties by joining a smoking cessation program.

The older smokers buying individual coverage could face a heavy financial hit at a time in life when smoking-related illnesses typically emerge.

Read more: http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/national/obamacare-2013-penalty-could-keep-smokers-out-of-obamacare#ixzz2J0v3A0jO

Obama Pulls Race Card To Cover For His Dismal Job Performance..

President Barack Obama said that racial tensions may have softened his popularity among white voters within the last two years, according to a story posted on the New Yorker magazine’s website today.

“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president,” Obama said in the article by David Remnick, appearing in the magazine’s Jan. 27 edition.

“Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black president,” Obama said in his most direct comments on how race has affected his political standing since he’s been in office.

Obama’s second term has been marked by controversies including a partial government shutdown in October, revelations that the National Security Agency has gathered personal mobile phone data and the troubled rollout of health-insurance expansion.

Obama’s approval rating among all voters is 39 percent and his disapproval rating is 53 percent, according to a Gallup Poll conducted Jan. 14-16. In the 2012 presidential election, Republican candidate Mitt Romney won 59 percent of the white vote, compared with Obama’s 39 percent, according to exit polling by a consortium of major news outlets. Obama won 43 percent of the white vote in 2008 against 55 percent for opponent John McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona.

Obamacare Blamed

“Poll after poll makes it very clear that

The Left Has a $500 Million Dark Money ‘ATM Machine’ Called Arabella

A largely unknown, massively funded strategy company pushing the interests of wealthy leftist donors has been quietly behind a hydra-like dark money network of pop-up groups designed to look like grassroots activist organizations. These front groups push everything from opposition to President Trump’s proposed border wall to support for Obamacare to gun control to government control of the Internet to pro-abortion activism and other leftwing causes.

The secretive Arabella Advisors may be one of the most impactful and sophisticated leftist funding outfits that you never heard of, a centralized hub that runs nonprofit arms that in turn have spawned a nexus of hundreds of front organizations outwardly designed to appear grassroots but that evidence the common theme of more government control in the lives of Americans.

Arabella’s vast network was unmasked in an extensive exposé by conservative watchdog Capital Research Center, which documents the shadowy system developed by, housed in, and staffed by the for-profit, privately held Arabella Advisors.

The Arabella firm in turn manages four nonprofits: the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund. It is these nonprofit entities that play host to hundreds of groups and projects that promote interests and political movements strategically deployed in an ongoing campaign to nudge the country to the left.

Arabella’s nonprofits spent a combined $1.16 billion from 2013-2017 alone with the aim of advancing “the political policies desired by wealthy left-wing interests through hundreds of ‘front’ groups,” according to the report. “And those interests pay well: the network’s revenues grew by an incredible 392 percent over that same period.”

“Together, these groups form an interlocking network of ‘dark money’ pop-up groups and other fiscally sponsored projects, all afloat in a half-billion-dollar ocean of cash,” states the report. “The real puppeteer, though, is Arabella Advisors, which has managed to largely conceal its role in coordinating so much of the professional Left’s infrastructure under a mask of ‘philanthropy.’”

A specialty of the Arabella network seems to be the quick turnover of hundreds of “front” groups, especially websites timed to impact current events and designed to look like “grassroots” Astroturf organizations but that actually function as part of an orchestrated movement to advance the political interests of hidden leftist donors.

“At a glance, these groups — such as Save My Care and Protect Our Care — appeared to be impassioned examples of citizen activists defending ObamaCare,” according to the report. “In reality, neither ‘not-for-profit’ advocacy group appears to have paid staff, held board meetings, or even owned so much as a pen.”

In one case, an organization calling itself Demand Justice, founded by former members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, quickly thrust itself into the center of opposition to Trump’s Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh.

Even before Trump announced Kavanaugh as his nominee, Demand Justice committed to spending about $5 million to oppose the eventual pick. As soon as Kavanaugh’s name was selected, the organization immediately deployed...

Why is Trump still supporting McMaster?

Every day it becomes clearer why former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn was unmasked and the early target of a series of illegal leaks targeting Team Trump. Flynn was an unabashed critic of President Barack Hussein Obama and someone who would take a bullet for Trump in any political battle. He had to be dispensed with and someone less loyal to Trump and more accommodating to the “resistance” put in his place.

That man was to be General H.R. McMaster, and the story of how he got to be President Trump’s National Security Adviser speaks volumes about his true loyalties. As journalist Caroline Glick notes in a recent article:

… there is the issue of how McMaster got there in the first place. Trump interviewed McMaster at Mara a Lago for a half an hour. He was under terrible pressure after firing Flynn to find someone.

And who recommended McMaster? You won’t believe this.

Senator John McCain. That’s right. The NSA got his job on the basis of a recommendation from the man who just saved Obamacare.

Obviously, at this point, Trump has nothing to lose by angering McCain. I mean what will he do? Vote for Obamacare?

President Trump has expressed his continued support for McMaster, even after a letter McMaster sent to Benghazi liar and serial unmake Susan Rice was revealed in which McMaster said he was perfectly fine with a person who should be a target of her very own special prosecutor retaining her security clearance. As Fox News Politics reported on August 5:

President Trump gave H.R. McMaster a vote of confidence after the national security adviser's rivals seized on a letter McMaster sent to his Obama predecessor Susan Rice giving her continued...

Obama Adviser Jonathan Gruber: Obamacare Will NOT Be Affordable

President Obama’s health care adviser Jonathan Gruber said that the Affordable Care Act would definitely not be affordable while he was writing the bill with the White House.

As Gruber continues to withhold documents while he awaits a call-back for more testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the new year, more shocking information is coming to light detailing the deceptions that went into the writing of the health-care law. (RELATED: Daily Caller Publishes First Video Of Gruber Calling The American People ‘Stupid’).

Gruber said that Obamacare had no cost controls in it and would not be affordable in...

Hillary: Illegals Should Be Able To Sign Up On Obamacare Exchanges, I Want ‘More Options’ For Them to Get Healthcare

Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that she supports allowing illegal immigrants to buy insurance off the exchanges set up under Obamacare, and addressed the issue of subsidies by saying this would need to “be worked out in comprehensive immigration reform. And what I do want to see, is that we have more options for undocumented people to be able to get the healthcare they need” on Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Final 5 Candidates.”

....And what I do want to see, is that we have more options for undocumented people to be able to get the healthcare they need. It’s not only the right and moral thing to do for them, it’s also important that we...

4 Things to Know as Employers, States Ponder Legal Challenges to Biden’s Vaccine Mandates

Sleepy, Creepy Joe Biden’s mandate for employers with more than 99 employees to require COVID-19 vaccinations likely will face legal challenges from employers and perhaps from states, knowledgeable observers say.

In remarks at the White House, Biden said Thursday evening that he had directed the Labor Department to develop an emergency regulation giving the Occupational Safety and Health Administration the authority to enforce a national vaccine mandate for larger employers.

While some hailed Biden for taking strong action beyond the federal workforce, others expressed disbelief at what they consider authoritarian measures.

Here are four things to know as the government’s vaccine requirements likely play out in court.

1. What States Are Saying

Already, some Republican state attorneys general are suggesting legal challenges to the Biden administration’s moves.

On Friday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton outright announced a lawsuit on Twitter, calling the mandate on employers of 100 or more workers “the most unconstitutional, illegal thing I’ve ever seen out of any Admin in modern American history.”

Biden was asked about potential state challenges to his vaccine mandate while speaking Friday at a school in the District of Columbia.

“Have at it,” the resident said, adding:

I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavelier with the health of their communities. We are playing for real here. This isn’t a game. I don’t know of any scientist out there in this field that doesn’t think it makes considerable sense to do the six things I’ve suggested.

One Republican governor, Phil Scott of Vermont, came out in support of Biden’s actions Thursday evening.

Also Thursday evening, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita tweeted: “Biden’s decision to demand American workers get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs is what one would expect of dictators in a banana republic.”

About an hour later, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich called Biden’s move a “devastating step toward nationalizing health care systems” and said he would act to “defend the state’s sovereignty.”

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, in a tweet Thursday evening, wrote: “Biden’s historic overreach on vaccine mandates will not stand in Missouri. We’re at a crossroads in America — who we are and what we’re going to be. We must fight back.”

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson also weighed in Thursday night, tweeting that his office will “fight any overreach that may limit individuals’ personal freedoms.”

2. Legal Grounds to Oppose Mandates

In this particular case, “individual personal freedoms” are not likely the question as the president tells private companies what to do and puts jobs on the line, said Ilya Shapiro, vice president and director of constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.

“The legal analysis here is not focused on individual rights, but … federal powers,” Shapiro told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

He referred to the mandate as a “constitutional triple threat.”

First, he said, is the constitutional issue of separation of powers.

As controversial as it was, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that Americans purchase health insurance; it wasn’t imposed by President Barack Obama.

“It is not in the executive branch enumerated powers,” said Shapiro, who noted that he is pro-vaccine but anti-mandate.

Second, Shapiro said, states traditionally have regulated public health matters.

Some legal experts contend that Biden has the power to impose OSHA mandates on companies through the Constitution’s commerce clause. That provision allows Congress to regulate commerce among states and between foreign nations.

In 1970, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which established the agency and included emergency temporary provisions.

Requiring many companies to make vaccines a condition of employment is further removed from the commerce clause than the Obamacare mandates for individuals to buy—and companies to supply—health insurance.

Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 upheld Obamacare’s so-called individual mandate, but rejected the commerce clause argument and instead called the mandate a tax.

“I don’t know of any federal vaccine mandates,” Shapiro said. “The level of government is important. Vaccine requirements before going to school are at the state, municipal, or local level.”

Third, forcing businesses to require their employees to be vaccinated is not a “proper” use of federal power, Shapiro said.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain, a long-time Biden aide, retweeted a comment from NBC News correspondent Stephanie Ruhle that said: “OSHA doing this vaxx mandate as an emergency workplace safety rule is the ultimate work-around for the Federal govt to require vaccinations.”

Biden may have made a poor move legally and politically, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote on his website.

“The problem is that the thing being ‘worked around’ is the Constitution,” Turley wrote. “Courts will now be asked to ignore the admission and uphold a self-admitted evasion of constitutional protections.”

He added:

The ‘work around’ was needed because, as some of us have previously [said] during both the Trump and Biden administration[s], the federal government does not have clear authority to impose public health mandates. Authority for such mandates has traditionally been recognized within state authority.

3. Supreme Court Precedent

8 Big Moments From Day 3 of Barrett’s Confirmation Hearings

On the third and final day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, senators revisited some issues covered the day before but also detoured into a president’s ability to pardon himself and the high court’s resolution of the 2000 presidential election.

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee also had to wait out technical difficulties with the audio in the hearing room.

President Donald Trump announced Sept. 26 that he would nominate Barrett, a judge on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.


Here are seven takeaways from Day 3 of the confirmation hearing.

1. Presidential Power

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pressed Barrett on the limits of presidential power regarding pardons and the Supreme Court’s power to require a president to obey a court order.

Barrett referenced a founding document, Federalist 78, to talk about the constitutional limits of the judiciary.

“Courts have neither force nor will. In other words, we can’t do anything to enforce our own judgments,” Barrett said. “So, what I meant in the conversation with you is that as a matter of law, the Supreme Court may have the final word. But the Supreme Court lacks control over what happens after that. The Supreme Court and any federal court has no power, no force, and no will, so it relies on the other branches to react to its judgments accordingly.”

Leahy followed by asking: “Is a president who refuses to comply with a court order a threat to our constitutional system of checks and balances?”

Barrett, 48, answered by bringing up the high court’s unanimous 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education to end “separate but equal” racial segregation in public schools.

After the high court decided that case, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, a Democrat, used the state’s National Guard to prevent desegregation of schools in Little Rock in 1957. President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, federalized the National Guard and sent the 101st Airborne into Little Rock to enforce federal law.

“The example of Brown is a perfect one in this instance because the Supreme Court in Brown, of course, held that segregation violated the [Constitution’s] Equal Protection Clause,” Barrett said. “That was the law. But as you know, there was resistance to that decision. As you know, it wasn’t until the National Guard came in and forced Gov. Faubus to allow desegregation that could happen, because the Supreme Court couldn’t do so itself.”

Leahy pressed her again on whether a president could disobey a high court order.

“As I said, the Supreme Court can’t control whether or not the president obeys,” Barrett responded. “Abraham Lincoln once disobeyed an order during the Civil War of a circuit court. So, a court can pronounce a law and issue a judgment, but it lacks control over how the political branches respond to it.”

Leahy went on to ask: “Would you agree no one is above the law?

Barrett responded, “I agree that no one is above the law.”

With that, Leahy asked: “Does a president have an absolute right to pardon himself for a crime? We heard this question after President Nixon’s impeachment.”

Barrett suggested that this could be a matter that goes before the Supreme Court and thus not something she could address.

“So far as I know, that question has never been litigated. That question has never arisen,” Barrett said. “That question may or may not arise. It’s one that calls for legal analysis for what the scope of the pardon power is. Because it would be opining on an open question when I haven’t gone through the judicial process to decide it, it’s not one in which I can offer a view on.”

Leahy replied: “I find your answers somewhat incompatible.”

2. Feinstein ‘Really Impressed’

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said she was “impressed” by an answer from Barrett.

A key attack from Democrats has been that Barrett’s confirmation would mean the end of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. That’s because a case called Texas v. California is heading to the Supreme Court.

Texas and other states assert that because Congress removed the law’s individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance, the rest of the law is unconstitutional. They note that the high court held in 2012 that the Obamacare law was constitutional because the individual mandate was a tax.

Earlier in the hearing, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., initially asked Barrett about the “doctrine of severability.”

Barrett said courts make a “presumption of severability” and consider the intent of the legislature.

Severability means that if one provision of a law passed by Congress is struck down by a court it doesn’t necessarily mean the entire law is struck down when that provision is severed.

Graham asked, “The doctrine of severability has a presumption to save the statute if possible, is that correct?”

Barrett affirmed it was.

Later, Feinstein followed up to ask Barrett to explain the meaning of the doctrine of severability again.

Barrett told Feinstein that severability tries not to undo the work of the elected branch of Congress.

“Severability strives to look at a statute as a whole and say, ‘Would the Congress have considered this provision so vital that, sort of [like] in a Jenga game, pulling it out, Congress wouldn’t want the statute anymore?’” Barrett said.

“I think, insofar as it tries to effectuate what Congress would have wanted, it’s the court and Congress working hand in hand,” the judge said.

This answer pleased Feinstein, who, as the committee’s ranking member, leads opposition to the nominee.

“Thank you. That’s quite a definition. I’m really impressed,” Feinstein said. 

3. ‘I Have My Own Mind’