Friday, November 21, 2014

Courting Your Health

I won't be because I view the third branch of government as corporate courts in the $upreme. It's pro-bu$ine$$, it has approved indefinite detention and torture, and won't touch war crimes by the legislative or executive branches. It's all a $how, folks.

Health overhaul's subsidies at Supreme Court

"Supreme Court will hear newest challenge to Affordable Care Act" by Robert Barnes | Washington Post   November 08, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will hear the most serious challenge to the federal health care law since the justices found it constitutional more than two years ago: a lawsuit targeting the subsidies that help millions of Americans buy health insurance.

More than 4 million people now receive the subsidies, and the Obama administration contends they are essential to the Affordable Care Act because they make insurance more affordable for low and middle-income families.

But challengers say the administration is violating the plain language of the law. They are represented by the same conservative legal strategists who fell one vote short of convincing the court the law was unconstitutional last time around.

The question in this challenge is whether the subsidies should be available to all Americans who qualify, or only to those who purchase insurance through exchanges ‘‘established by the state.’’

About a third of the states have created exchanges, and the challengers say the subsidies should be available only in those places. As the law authorizes, federal authorities have stepped in to establish exchanges where the states have refused.

The decision to hear the case, which will be decided by the end of the court’s term in June, comes as the act’s second enrollment period begins Nov. 15. Separately, the Republican takeover of the Senate probably means more attacks by the law’s GOP opponents on President Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

‘‘This lawsuit reflects just another partisan attempt to undermine the Affordable Care Act and to strip millions of American families of tax credits that Congress intended for them to have,’’ White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

Why was the law written and so badly, and why did it then pass?

The decision to accept the case — along with the increased likelihood the justices will be compelled to decide whether gay couples have the constitutional right to marry — could transform what had been forecast as a quiet term for the court.

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Some were suspicious of the court’s decision to accept the health law case....

The decision ‘‘appears to be a very political act on the part of at least four members of the Supreme Court,’’ said Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, a consumer health advocacy group that is one of the law’s champions.

He referred to the number of justices, out of nine, required to accept a case. ‘‘It really flies in the face of the various guidelines the court uses to decide which cases it will schedule to hear.’’ 

It is an attempt by the four that voted to show up Roberts for turning at the last minute and supporting the abomination of Obummercare, with the added benefit of stripping subsidies now -- thus getting the government off the hook for premiums that are now mandated, and if you can't afford them they will just keep the taxes you paid, 'kay? 

Is that really for your health, Americans, or is it yet again simply healthy for the fist of money-grabbing government?

But Washington lawyer Michael Carvin, representing individuals in Virginia who objected to the subsidies, told the court in his brief that it had to act quickly.

If his side is correct, Carvin said, ‘‘it means millions of people are ineligible for subsidies and exempt from the ACA’s individual mandate penalty. It means hundreds of thousands of employers are free of the Act’s employer mandate.’’

He added: ‘‘And it means that the IRS is illegally spending billions of taxpayer dollars every month without congressional authority.’’

The Internal Revenue Service ruled that, while the wording in the law could be construed as confusing, Congress’s intent was that all receive the subsidies. More than four out of five people who have received coverage through the federal exchange are getting a tax credit.

No one read it before they voted?

But the challengers say limiting the tax credits to only exchanges ‘‘established by the state’’ was intentional, to coerce the states into action.

The administration disagrees, arguing that Congress understood the ACA would work only if the subsidies were provided to all who were required to buy insurance. Otherwise, the law would not have authorized federal authorities to establish the exchanges when states balked.

The ‘‘tax credits at issue here are essential to the Affordable Care Act’s goals of making affordable health coverage available to all Americans and ensuring functional insurance markets,’’ Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the court....

The only point of agreement between challengers and the administration is that the subsidies are critical to the act.

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On the same-sex marriage front....

Everything is framed as a goddamn war to the indoctrinated pre$$titutes.

Supreme Court should make gay marriage a national right
Judge tells Kan. to allow gay nuptials
Gay couples marry in Kansas despite legal fight
Supreme Court lifts hold on gay marriage in Kansas
Judge overturns Missouri ban on gay marriage
Montana gay couples exchange vows after ban tossed
1st gay marriage licenses issued in South Carolina
Mich. appeal asks justices to outlaw bans of gay marriage
Court backs states’ rights to ban gay marriage
Federal appeals judge is swing vote on key issue

As you can see, I am no longer fighting certain battles that the agenda-pushing media is promoting.

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Related:

Challenge to Obamacare on contraceptives rejected
In ruling, Mississippi abortion law remains blocked

Time to abort the peeping toms:

Appeals court takes on NSA surveillance case" by Ellen Nakashima and Victoria St. Martin | Washington Post   November 05, 2014

My byline read Pete Yost, AP:

"Three federal appeals court judges struggled Tuesday over whether the National Security Agency's phone data surveillance program is an intelligence-gathering tool that makes the nation safer or an intrusive threat that endangers privacy.

The judges — all appointed by Republican presidents — expressed uncertainty about where to draw the line between legal surveillance and violations of constitutional rights in the age of terrorism.

Yes, everything springs from that false-flagging lie, all the tyranny ushered forth since. Thus it renders the very argument itself as unsupportable. The ones who committed the terrorism are charged with protecting us from further terrorism. Not even Orwell could have seen the insanity of the current propaganda matrix.

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The three appeals judges in the Washington case have generally come down on the government's side on national security issues.

Judge David Sentelle permitted the George W. Bush administration to withhold names and other details about hundreds of foreigners detained in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Appeals judge Stephen Williams upheld the military tribunals set up by the Bush administration to try terrorism suspects for war crimes. Judge Janice Rogers Brown ruled that four British citizens had no right to sue Pentagon officials over accusations that the detainees were tortured and their religious rights violated while held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

And you wonder why I'm not counting on the courts as a check on anything?

Sentelle and Williams were nominees of President Ronald Reagan. Brown was nominated by President George W. Bush.

The government is using a 35-year-old Supreme Court ruling as the legal underpinning for the NSA's phone data surveillance program. In Smith v. Maryland, police asked a phone company to install a device to monitor numbers that a robbery suspect had dialed. The court ruled that the suspect had no expectation of privacy for the dialed phone numbers.

I no longer have any, which is one reason I'm still here. My opinions are certainly right out in front. 

Btw, I'd like to welcome all the government monitors for boosting my hits. 

The Smith case doesn't fit today's reality, activist attorney Larry Klayman wrote in recently filed court papers. The bulk collection effort covers "every aspect of our lives," he wrote....

And now they know I went and searched this out.

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Why did the Roberts reversal just come to mind when I'm thinking NSA spying and data collection? What porn was he looking at?

"Justices weigh whistleblower protections in case of fired air marshal" New York Times Syndicate   November 05, 2014

WASHINGTON — A majority of the justices seemed ready to side with a fired air marshal on Tuesday in a Supreme Court argument over whether he was covered by a federal law protecting whistle-blowers.

Maybe there is hope for them yet.

In 2003, the air marshal, Robert J. MacLean, received a secret briefing about a terrorist threat affecting long-distance flights. Two days later, he was told by text message from the Transportation Security Administration that to save money, the agency was canceling assignments requiring an overnight stay.

In other words, the government knew there was not going to be an attack because they are the ones behind all the false flag psyops. That has become so clear within the last few months as the mind-manipulating propaganda effort is running at full steam. Can't even keep up with it anymore.

He complained to his superiors, saying the move would imperil public safety. When they failed to act, he contacted an MSNBC reporter. The news coverage promptly led to a reversal of the travel policy.

When the government identified MacLean as the source of the report, it fired him for disclosing sensitive information without authorization. MacLean challenged his dismissal under the Whistleblower Protection Act, which insulates federal workers from retaliation if they disclose “a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.”

The law has an exception for disclosures “specifically prohibited by law.” The main question for the justices was whether a Department of Homeland Security regulation was the sort of exception that Congress was referring to in the whistle-blower law.

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I was kind of hoping for a corruption-type whi$tleblower, not this agenda reinforcement they are hearing. 

Time to get out of the courtroom:

"Justices consider status of Jerusalem for US passports" by Adam Liptak | New York Times   November 04, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday considered the status of Jerusalem, which Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. told the justices was “the most vexing and volatile and difficult diplomatic issue that this nation has faced for decades.”

Yeah, it's a mess right now thanks to Zionist Israeli provocations with all the false flags flying at full mast, etc, etc. 

So what is the deal, it to become the capital of the United States or something? Might as well be considering the government subservience to that stinking genocidal government and state.

The legal question for the justices was whether Congress was entitled in a 2002 law to order the State Department to “record the place of birth as Israel” in the passports of American children born in Jerusalem if their parents asked. 

Can the Zionist grip on Congre$$ be any clearer? They care more about Jews and Israel than they do the vast majority of Americans.

The answer to that question involves the separation of powers and the competing roles of Congress and the president in the conduct of foreign affairs. But the justices seemed unusually alert to the real-world consequences of their eventual decision.

First of all, that second thing should not mean a thing because the law is the law; however, what it also indicates is that Israel has their hands on all those compromising communications and so forth.

When Alyza D. Lewin, a lawyer for the couple seeking compliance with the law, said that a notation in a passport is a minor matter and not a statement on US foreign policy, Justice Elena Kagan said her assertion was poorly timed.

“Can I say that this seems a particularly unfortunate week to be making this kind of ‘Oh, it’s no big deal’ argument?” Kagan asked. “I mean, history suggests that everything is a big deal with respect to the status of Jerusalem. And right now Jerusalem is a tinder box.”

But Justice Antonin Scalia said the question for the court concerned constitutional law and not international relations. “If it is within Congress’ power,” he said, “what difference does it make whether it antagonizes foreign countries?”

“The fact that the State Department doesn’t like the fact that it makes the Palestinians angry is irrelevant,” he said.

Forget the Palestinians. 

I, as an American citizen, object to having Israel sanctioned as an American birthplace complete with citizenship. We have had enough dual-nationals wreak havoc over here for their loyalty lies over there!

The case was brought by the parents of Menachem B. Zivotofsky, who was born in 2002 soon after Congress passed the law. Under the State Department’s policies, their son’s passport says that he was born in Jerusalem; they seek to have it say Israel.

Just another way of trying to claim the whole city before they take the damn thing.

President George W. Bush signed the law, part of an appropriations bill, but said he would not follow the Jerusalem provision because it “impermissibly interferes with the president’s constitutional authority to conduct the nation’s foreign affairs.” The Obama administration also objects to the provision.

For once I'm with the administrations, and that gives you a clue as to why the Zionist slave-masters are still unhappy with their subservient puppet.

The case was before the justices once before, on a preliminary issue. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the case did not involve a “political question” beyond the federal courts’ power to decide and returned the case to an appeals court. Last year, the appeals court ruled for the executive branch, saying the passport requirement impermissibly intruded on what it said was the president’s exclusive power to recognize foreign governments.

Now that the ultimate question was before the Supreme Court again, some justices seemed to be looking for a narrow way to decide it.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wondered whether passports could include a disclaimer saying the birthplace designation is not a declaration by the president “that Jerusalem is within the borders of the state of Israel.”

Lewin said that would be fine. But, she added in response to a question from Kagan, Congress could instruct the president to delete the statement.

Kagan said passports are diplomatic communications and suggested that Congress should not be allowed to dictate their content. To press the point, she asked Lewin whether Congress could require the secretary of state to send a letter to “every foreign minister” announcing that an American baby had been born in Israel every time one was born in Jerusalem.

Then he can't be president!

To Kagan’s apparent surprise, Lewin said that would be constitutional. Kagan said the answer was “a little bit shocking.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stepped in to offer a distinction between the hypothetical letters and passports. “The passport is used primarily for purposes of identification,” he said, “and it’s only the letter that makes it something else.”

In other matters Monday:

■ The court rejected an appeal from a public interest group and four members of Congress who challenged the Senate filibuster as unconstitutional. The justices let stand a lower court ruling that said Common Cause and the lawmakers did not have legal standing to pursue the case.

Are Democrats going to use the filibuster this time, or just roll over like they usually do?

■ The justices said they won’t hear an appeal challenging the constitutionality of a Colorado law that bans people from obstructing entry to abortion clinics. They left in place a lower court ruling that said the law does not restrict free speech or otherwise violate the rights of abortion protesters.

■ The high court left in place a portion of a New York City law aimed at regulating crisis pregnancy centers that are run by antiabortion organizations.

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I have come to the conclusion that reading the Boston Globe is unhealthy for me.