Breaking news isn't often my concern here, but this is big/bigger/biggest stuff:
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health- care overhaul in a clash that will shape the 2012 election and spell out the extent of the federal government's power.
The justices today said they will consider whether Congress exceeded its authority by requiring all Americans to either acquire insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty.
The court will wield unprecedented influence over the presidential election campaign, with a decision in the case likely in late June, months before the election. The eventual ruling may define Chief Justice John Roberts' court, either as an aggressive enforcer of the constitutional constraints on Congress or as a nonpolitical body inclined to defer to the elected branches on policy questions.
BIG: How the ruling, just four or five months before the election, will affect the presidential race. The pundits will be busy for weeks now trying to figure out if Obamacare going down or being reaffirmed is good or bad for Obama's re-elections chanches or will add to or subtract from GOP propspects. This will be both the most tedious and most plentiful commentary.
BIGGER: How much of health care the government will control. It's already in for more than 50 percent, and the progressive politicians certainly want it to be 100. This ruling will determine in part how gargantuan our already monstrous government is going to be before everything crashes and burns.
BIGGEST: Whether the government reaally can do anything it damn well pleases or whether there any constitutional retrainsts whatsoever on powet. This might be a defining moment for the age.
Comments
It disturbs me when ANYTHING goes to the Supreme Court these days. For the first time ever, or at least in my life, everyone knows with absolute certainty how eight of the nine will vote. The one branch that should be utterly apolitical has become more polarized than any other branch. All SC decisions are made by Justice Kennedy, arguably the most powerful man in American government, and he is answerable (for all practical purposes) to no one.
And I hate having to worry so much about the thinking of one person who can't seem to settle on a particular philosophy, as in, "Which side of the bed did Kennedy get up on for this case?"
There is some concern in liberal corners that Ginni Thomas is an anti-Obamacare activist. I'm inclined to say pfuui to that notion. Wives have always influenced husbands, and the fact that it's visible in this case, rather than invisible in the case of the other spouses, doesn't make it any worse.
And I think the notion that Clarence Thomas is pussy-whipped is rather insulting. I haven't been impressed by his intellect, but I see no reason to believe that he's a puppet controlled by his wife, rather than his wife being a puppet he controls.
What does concern me is that virtually all the justices are Roman Catholics. Frankly, it would probably pay to have a couple of Jesuits on the high court. On the other hand, this is no less objectionable than the court's historic makeup as old white men, anglo saxon. Adding black and hispanic members, adding women, and if you go farther back, adding jewish membership were signs of progress.
But I'd like to see at least one mainline protestant and one fundamentalist protestant on the court, given the protestants are the majority in this country, and that there's no shortage of protestant lawyers.