Suit to Overturn Obamacare Hears First Arguments

By: David A. Patten

All eyes will be focused on a Pensacola, Florida courtroom Tuesday as Justice Department lawyers will try to convince a federal district court judge to throw out a lawsuit by 20 states charging that President Obama's healthcare reforms are unconstitutional.

The multi-state lawsuit has been led by Florida's Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican.

The Obama administration has claimed that the states have no legal standing to bring their legal action.

The central issue in the hearing: Whether the states are legally empowered to challenge the fines in the individual mandate that gives Obamacare its bite.

In an exclusive Newsmax.TV interview, Attorney General McCollum says the federal government has exceeded its constitutional authority.

"We are arguing that it's unconstitutional for the federal government to tell you, if you are just sitting in front of your TV set, or doing nothing in the way of real economic activity, that you have to buy a health insurance policy or pay a penalty," McCollum tells Newsmax.

"That's just not in the Constitution," he adds. "The Founding Fathers didn't enumerate any powers that appear to us to give them the right to say this."

The stakes could hardly be higher.

If the administration prevails, it would deal a major blow to conservatives' hopes of using the courts to block the administration's signature piece of legislation.

If the judge rejects the administration's motion, it would mark the second time in as many months that anti-Obamacare forces have won a major court battle on the unpopular bill that most Democrats would prefer voters forget.

The federal government is expected to argue that the "individual mandate" -- essentially a demand that every citizen buy private health insurance or suffer a fine levied by the IRS -- is actually a tax. Only taxpayers can argue the legality of a tax, they contend, and even then only after the assessments take effect in 2015.

The administration also will cite its constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce, along with its responsibility to provide for the public's general welfare.

Those are the same arguments the federal government made in a Virginia hearing on the other state-level lawsuit filed against healthcare reform, which was filed by Virginia GOP Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

After hearing from both sides in that case, federal Judge Harry E. Hudson in August rejected the federal government's request to have the case dismissed.

Virginia's case, however, was bolstered by a law the Old Dominion adopted making it illegal to require its citizens to purchase health insurance.

"Unquestionably, this regulation radically changes the landscape of health insurance coverage in America," wrote Judge Hudson in his 32-page opinion.

Hudson also said the federal government's authority to regulate commerce had never been extended so far before.

McCollum says the penalty the federal government seeks to impose is not a tax.

"Even if it's a tax, we think there's no provision in the Constitution allowing this kind of tax," McCollum tells Newsmax. "When President Obama advocated this legislation, he said there was no tax involved in it. So the government's being a little disingenuous, but they're going to make that kind of an argument in this hearing."

McCollum estimates the expansion of Medicaid in the president's healthcare reforms will cost Florida $1 billion a year. He says he feels "pretty confident" that the judge will allow the case to move forward.

Two taxpayers as well as the nation's leading small-business lobby, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), have joined his lawsuit. If any one of them is found to have standing, McCollum says, the entire lawsuit would move forward.

McCollum says the healthcare reform legislation could be especially vulnerable once the case reaches the trial phase, because Democrats did not place a severability clause in the bill. That's a common boilerplate provision included in many Congressional bills stipulating that if one provision of a new law is ruled illegal, the remaining parts of the legislation remains in force.

"It certainly is a fact that they have no severability clause," McCollum says. "If at any time we win on any portion of this, then the whole law goes down. I think that the courts are going to look at this as more of a whole. They're going to say, 'How is this all going to interplay?'"

According to The Associated Press, some legal experts believe the 20 states will find it difficult to convince the judge they have been harmed by a law that won't take effect for years. But the NFIB says several of its members have already suffered, because their insurance companies altered policies, and even discontinued them, in anticipation of the new law taking effect.

"We would agree with the government that the individual mandate is the key to the entire healthcare law," said NFIB Executive Director Karen Harned. "But we think the entire healthcare law is bad."

Tuesday's hearing is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. and each side will have 45 minutes to present its case before U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson.

Vinson is not expected to announce his ruling tomorrow. Both sides in the dispute have indicated the case will eventually come before the U.S. Supreme Court — perhaps before the 2012 presidential election.

Glenn Beck: Obama Administration 'Most Corrupt of All Time'

By: David A. Patten

Fox News host Glenn Beck tells Newsmax that President Barack Obama's White House qualifies as the most corrupt administration in U.S. history.

"There are so many things that this administration has done that I think will go down in history as ... it's going to go down in history as the most corrupt administration ever," Beck says in an exclusive Newsmax.TV interview.

Beck's no-holds-barred assessment of the Obama administration's ethics comes as he is promoting an Aug. 28 celebration at the Lincoln Memorial called Restoring Honor.

The remark came as Newsmax.TV sought Beck's reaction to a recent statement that GOP Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl attributed to Obama.

Kyl said he asked Obama to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, but the president refused because it would reduce Republicans' incentive to compromise on immigration reform. The White House denied Kyl's account, but former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo wrote in op-ed column that Obama's stance "constitutes an impeachable offense."

Asked if he agrees with Tancredo, Beck replies "I'll leave that up to them."

But he goes on to say: "If the story is ever told, if the journalists ever decide to regain their soul to their journalist god – whoever that is, Walter Lippmann or I don't know who – if they ever care to redeem their soul, and actually look into the corruption and things that are going on in this administration, this administration will be exposed as the most corrupt of all time."

The Fox News luminary added that former President George W. Bush also failed in his duty to secure the border.

Beck spoke at length about Restoring Honor, described as a non-political effort to re-establish the values expressed when the nation was created.

"Trying to restore our country," Beck explains, "it's impossible to do it if we don't have honor."

According to the GlennBeck.com/828 website, the Restoring Honor celebration will pay tribute to America's military personnel for their embodiment of the virtue of honor.

The event is free, and all proceeds raised will go to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which awards scholarships to the children of special-operations personnel who die in combat or training.

In the interview, Beck points to a recent Gallup poll that shows the 76 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the U.S. military – much higher than the public has in any other institution.

Congress, by comparison, enjoys the confidence of 11 percent. The presidency has the confidence of 36 percent.

Big business and organized labor score 19 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

"I was pondering why [the military], and it's because they're honorable," Becks says. "They'll do the tough things. They'll do them because they're the right things to do. And we still believe in them … generally speaking, they are the only things we still believe in, that and our religious organizations."

Controversy seems to follow Beck around wherever he goes these days, so it's no surprise his foes on the left are planning to hold a demonstration against his Restoring Honor rally. How could an event supporting U.S. war heroes and their families possibly be controversial?

Well, it turns out Aug. 28 happens to be the 47th anniversary of the day Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech, which also was delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Beck says the choice of dates was accidental. But a smattering of protesters say they'll also be there on the Mall.

Beck opens up in the interview about the key role faith has played in securing the nation's future. Helping Americans rediscover their true identity, and their most cherished beliefs, is even more important than influencing political outcomes, he says.

"I have news for you," Beck tells Newsmax. "If anybody thinks this is going to be an easy transition, either into socialism, into the slavery of Marxism, or the transition back into our founding principles, it's not going to be an easy ride.

"It's going to get very, very bumpy. We're not at the bottom yet. However, there's one way to make it a lot easier. That is, for us to be the people we truly are, not the people that we've allowed ourselves to become. To reconnect with those inner virtues and values within ourselves.

"We do it naturally at the time of trouble, we did it on 9/12," he adds. "That's who we naturally are. Now let's master that to be able to be that way without the crisis, so we can logically think our way out of the trouble that we're in."

The Fox News host and perennial best-selling author also describes Sarah Palin's role in the event. "She's going to be introducing some of the heroes who will be on stage … amazing, amazing military people," he says. "She'll be introducing them, and talking about the honor and integrity of our military."

Other speakers scheduled to appear at Restoring Honor include Marcus Luttrell, former Navy Seal and author of the best-selling “Lone Survivor”; and Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr. Country music artist Jo Dee Messina is expected to perform as well.

During the exclusive interview, Beck reserves his toughest critique for the current administration.

Asked whether a court decision granting the administration the authority require people to buy health insurance would lead to tyranny, Beck says, "Totally. I mean, we're there. If they can do this … It's unconstitutional."

Beck says he won't try to predict how the courts might rule on the state-level challenge to healthcare reform's individual mandate. But he insists his track record for making predictions has been pretty good.

"Everyone who disagreed with me two years ago, said none of these things can happen. … I'd ask them 'Why?' They'd say, 'Well, because, you don't understand politics.' Or 'You don't understand this or you don't understand this.'

"I said, 'You don't understand this: They don't care. Progressives don't care. They're not playing on the same rulebook.

"And now you've taken progressives and added revolutionary right next to them. The game is entirely different. So, predictions: Think the unthinkable," Beck says.

"What you thought couldn't happen a year ago, has. What you think can't happen next year, could."


© Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Obama Is Demagogue in Chief on Immigration Issue

By: David Limbaugh

As the granddaddy of political demagoguery, President Obama might have outdone himself with his recent admonition to political opponents not to "demagogue" the immigration issue.

A "demagogue" is "a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument."

"Ah," you say, "Obama is onto something here. Those who oppose his open-border policy are appealing to prejudice against immigrants instead of to rational argument." Wrong.

Rather, those who support defending our borders believe in the rule of law and in law enforcement. The people of the United States — and Arizona in particular — have a rational interest in protecting their borders and in wanting to prevent illegal immigration.

Though we've had immigration laws on the books for years, are Obama's Democrats saying they are irrationally based — that anyone who wants to enforce these laws is prejudiced? That anyone throughout our history who favored controlling immigration was harboring racial prejudice?

It is Obama and many of his supporters who fall into the demagogue category by appealing to prejudices and fears in lieu of rational argument.

Even in his invocation of the term "demagogue" to describe this issue, Obama himself is demagoguing. He must, because he has no reasonable arguments to justify his lawless policy.

Obama is implying — and has been implying for months — that the people of Arizona didn't pass an enforcement law to ensure their own safety or to facilitate legitimate ends of law enforcement authorities, but to discriminate against legal aliens.

Indeed, the thrust of the administration's ill-conceived lawsuit against the state of Arizona and its people is that legal aliens would be targeted by the reach of the new law.

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder know better, as Arizona officials testified under oath and averred otherwise in court filings, but they choose to persist in this destructive lie anyway because rational arguments fail them.

The law will not be applied to legal aliens, but it doesn't target illegal aliens, either. It merely allows authorities to demand documentation from those who are already detained because of a reasonable suspicion they broke a law.

If they don't put themselves in a position of being under such suspicion, the immigration law is powerless against them.

Being "a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices," Obama wants to inflame Hispanics into believing the Arizona people and Republicans nationwide are motivated by a prejudice against Mexicans.

Liberals have been hyping this malicious canard for years, suggesting that Republicans and conservatives are nativists and racists.

This is part of a pattern for Obama: to hold himself out as transcending race while exploiting the issue worse than anyone has in the past 50 years.

Whether in his self-indulgent autobiographies or his stump speeches, Obama consistently reveals his deep-seated racial baggage, and he simply will not desist from projecting that baggage onto his political opponents, who oppose him because of his policies. Obama's mentor Saul Alinsky would heartily approve.

In his "bitter clingers" speech, Obama suggested that small-town Americans cling to not only their "guns or religion" — as if that were unhealthy — but also their "antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

"Antipathy to people who aren't like them"? Notice how he unctuously conflates racial prejudice with anti-trade and anti-immigration ideas. He's talking about political conservatives here — Middle America — and implying they're racists.

No mistake about it. Apparently, he can view things only through race-tinted spectacles and insists on forcing those glasses on the rest of us as well.

"High-minded" liberal elites were beside themselves proclaiming that Obama, because of his race, was in a special position to usher in an era of racial harmony.

Well, if we accept the premise that his race should matter on race relations, then it's also fair to say that he has a special responsibility not to exploit the race issue and that he should take extraordinary care not to inflame the already sensitive passions that exist.

It can't reasonably be argued that it's healthy for race relations for Obama to gallivant about suggesting ordinary Americans are routinely prejudiced, whether against blacks, Hispanics, or other "minorities."

Such reckless speech does more to exacerbate racial tensions than his election could ever do to heal them.

Falsely accusing people of racism is essentially the same thing as racism. It's time for Obama and many other liberals to rise above their own categorical prejudice against conservatives and quit slandering them as racists and nativists. Then we can proceed to have a rational discussion on the issue of immigration.

David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His new book, "Crimes Against Liberty," will come out in August. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his website.


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