Federal Judge Throws Out Obamacare

"Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void."

This is in reference to the 26 state lawsuit that was argued in the Northern District of Florida federal court.

Language from the decision, featuring a reference to the Boston Tea Party (entire PDF):

It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause. If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting --- as was done in the Act --- that compelling the actual transaction is itself “commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce” [see Act § 1501(a)(1)], it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted. It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place. ...
In the final analysis, this Act has been analogized to a finely crafted watch, and that seems to fit. It has approximately 450 separate pieces, but one essential piece (the individual mandate) is defective and must be removed. It cannot function as originally designed. There are simply too many moving parts in the Act and too many provisions dependent (directly and indirectly) on the individual mandate and other health insurance provisions --- which, as noted, were the chief engines that drove the entire legislative effort --- for me to try and dissect out the proper from the improper, and the able-to-stand-alone from the unable-to-stand-alone. Such a quasi-legislative undertaking would be particularly inappropriate in light of the fact that any statute that might conceivably be left over after this analysis is complete would plainly not serve Congress’ main purpose and primary objective in passing the Act. The statute is, after all, called “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” not “The Abstinence Education and Bone Marrow Density Testing Act.” The Act, like a defectively designed watch, needs to be redesigned and reconstructed by the watchmaker.

So what's next?  Allahpundit at HotAir explains:

A nice win, if only because it’s fun to watch the left sweat, but as we’ve discussed before, these lower-court decisions are virtually meaningless. There’s no question that the Supreme Court will eventually take this matter up, and given how profound the constitutional objection to the mandate is, there’s no chance that they’ll let “deference” to lower-court rulings shape their opinion on the matter. What we’re doing with these district court rulings — which now stand evenly split on ObamaCare, two finding it constitutional and two not — is going through the procedural motions until the Supremes get down to business.

  It's a battle won, but not yet the war.  We cannot relent.

Events in Egypt

This report comes by way of General Krulak, former Commandant of The Marine Corps.

You may find this interesting...an inside report from a woman living in London whose family lives in Cairo. The family is well-to-do and has something to do with the movie business. "Ami" is working on her doctorate at the London School of Economics.

January 29, 2011—11:53 AM

I have been trying for the better part of two days to call my father in Egypt. On Thursday, the Egyptian government blocked all mobile phone and internet communications in the country and I wondered if they were able to watch satellite television to see what was happening. I finally got through this morning. Service had just been restored. I had one of the most memorable conversations with my step-mother and father that I have ever had. There is little doubt that we are now witnessing history in the making.

I didn’t know how my family would view the protests and I thought they would stay as far away from the action as possible. On one hand, they may be targeted or attacked by the protesters, as part of the elite that had kept the mid-lower classes from developing. On the other hand, if they joined in the protests, they could be easily identified by Mubarak’s secret police and if the current regime stayed in power, my family could find themselves woken in the middle of the night and taken to jail. As all Egyptians know, this is to be avoided.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I can best describe the tone of their voices as elated, excited and proud. They were excited by the events of past week and extremely proud of the vanguard of young people who are, in their view, uniting to bring Egypt forward. In the most nationalist of nationalistic ways, it seems, Egyptians of all classes, ages and religions are united in a joint effort to end the 30 years of emergency rule under President Mubarak and bring a ‘real’ democracy to Egypt. It is truly amazing.

The protests were organized and being led entirely by young people — aged 20-35. Modern technology was used to generate support in the masses, and for the first time in Egyptian history, this is an uprising FROM the people. It is as ‘grassroots’ as it possibly gets. It is difficult to imagine how Mubarak could think he would be able to reclaim control or authority after this week’s events.

The internet and mobile phone communications systems were cut by the government before the planned demonstrations on Friday. The protests were organized primarily through Facebook and text messaging, so it was a clear attempt to prevent further organized protests. The ability of the Egyptian youth to harness this technology and use it as a tool of popular protest is being hailed by the local media as the most historic and significant aspect of what is happening. It is, they say, a new tool of mass revolution.

For me, it isn’t the use of technology that is so impressive…it is the fact that the Egyptian people are exercising democracy in its truest form. Unlike the Iraqis, for example who have had democracy imposed upon them from outside, the Egyptian people are bringing democracy from within. They are not being driven by religious zeal, fanatical tendencies, or partisan objectives, but by a shared basic belief that they have a fundamental right to live and work in a nation in which they have liberty and freedom. It is difficult not to have respect for that. Particularly when you see the numbers…there are hundreds of thousands of them. They have only one mantra: ‘Go, go, go…Mubarak must go.’

As I said earlier, I couldn’t have been more wrong about how my family would react to the events. My father and step-mother drove to central Cairo yesterday to join the protests. They were only able to get as far as the Sixth of October bridge — a bridge that links Mohandessein/Giza with Tahrir Square where the main protests are taking place. They got out of their car and joined in. My step-mother was immediately recognized by the other protestors, was lifted onto the shoulders of two young men, and was soon leading a large group across the bridge chanting the mantra of the protests. It encouraged them, I think, to see a figure they recognized among them. The army, on the other side of the bridge began firing tear gas on them and they ran across the bridge in retreat.

My father described seeing young men blinded by tear gas. He saw others who were walking, shirtless, among the protestors with their torsos covered in welts and bruises from where they had been shot by rubber bullets. They refused to go home and wore their welts with pride in front of the crowd as if to show the army that they would not be stopped. A 26 year old woman was killed while holding an Egyptian flag. Of course there have been many others.

Perhaps the most interesting story he told me involved the famous Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square. 25 army officers in plain clothes had been instructed to break into the museum and steal artifacts. (Presumably so that the protesters would be blamed.) There are no police in Cairo at the moment and nothing to stop them. The officers were spotted by a group of protestors who somehow realized who they were and stopped them from breaking into the museum by literally creating a barricade of human bodies in front of the museum doors. The protestors were adamant that they would not allow the government to take away their culture and heritage.

The last revolution in Egypt occurred in 1952 when Nasser and his Free Officers took over the country from King Farouq. Since he had lived through both, I asked my father how this revolution compares to the last. He responded that there was absolutely no comparison. The Free Officers Revolution was, he argued, a revolution of the military elite. The people had nothing to do with it, really. This revolution, he argued, was from the people...directly from the voices and hearts of the people.

So what will happen next? It appears that all eyes are on Mohamed Elbaradei, the Egyptian Nobel Prize laureate and former head of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). My family feels that Mubarak dealt himself a final blow in last night’s news address in which he dismissed all of his government—except himself! While I was on the phone with them, it was broadcast that the curfew had been extended and all of Cairo was on 24 hour lock-down. They were told that if they broke the curfew, they would be shot. The protestors, my family feels assured, will not leave. Many of the young people in the streets have been there for two or three days and are refusing to leave until Mubarak steps down.

The EPA's Mess with Texas

January 30, 2011

By Ben Voth

As part of Obama's new political initiative to bypass a Congress that rejected his leadership in 2009 and 2010, he has announced executive orders to allow the federal government to restrict economic activity to fit legislative goals he apparently no longer believes he can win in political debate.  One of the most important new targets in this new post-congressional agenda is Texas.  The EPA is messing with Texas in ways that threaten to disrupt the biggest jobs-producer in the United States.

The EPA is moving to restrict Texas' ability to continue as the largest production base for natural gas in the nation.  As the largest consumer and producer of natural gas, Texas provides an important alternative in energy production to the conventional fossil fuels of coal and oil.  Those fuels have fallen into dire regulatory restrictions that Vice President Biden suggested should eventually lead to the end of coal production in the United States.  Natural gas has emerged as an important transitional fuel to the green economy.  Despite this, the Obama administration is moving to limit this component of Texas' economic boom.

A secret weapon in the battle over Texas is EPA regulator Dr. Al Armendariz.  Armendariz was tapped by the Obama administration to limit natural gas production in Texas.  In his seminal article on natural gas production from the Barnett shale in North Texas, Armendariz argues that gas production contributes more to global warming than automotive traffic in Dallas:

For comparison, 2009 emission inventories recently used by state and federal regulators estimated smog- forming emissions from all airports in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area to be 16 tpd. In addition, these same inventories had emission estimates for on-road motor vehicles (cars, trucks, etc.) in the 9- county Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area of 273 tpd. The portion of on-road motor vehicle emissions from the 5-counties in the D-FW metropolitan area with significant oil and gas production was 121 tpd, indicating that the oil and gas sector likely has greater emissions than motor vehicles in these counties.

The research relies on "personal conversations" Armendariz had with natural gas-producers in the Dallas area.  This is not generally an acceptable standard for research, but it is laying the foundation for intensely regulating the last major fossil fuel that Texas and the United States can turn to in the 21st century.  The promotion of the activist/expert to the EPA bodes ill for energy use in the United States.  The EPA plans to designate Dallas air as "serious" with regard to ozone pollution based on 1997 standards.  Though Dallas has economically boomed and had a population increase of more than 25% since 1997, the city has reduced ozone levels from 102 parts per billion to 86 parts per billion.  This impressive feat draws no acceptance from the EPA, and the 2 ppb will be enough to designate Dallas as having some of the dirtiest air in the nation.  Dallas air is getting cleaner and will likely soon meet the 1997 standard despite rapid economic growth, but the EPA is eager to dim the star of Lone Star success.

The broader war on CO2 is also important.  The potential ramifications for natural gas-producers are huge since CO2 regulation is authorized by a 2007 Supreme Court decision that allows the EPA to regulate such emissions.  The messing with Texas is compounded by ideological documentaries such as Gasland which try to deceive the public into believing that natural gas extraction contaminates water supplies.  Though gas is extracted nearly a mile below the water supply, ideologues show homeowners dependent on well water setting fire to their water taps from gases presumably introduced by gas drilling.  Though the causation is purely speculative and can definitely happen without the presence of gas drilling, the scare tactics are having the same effect they had on nuclear power with "China Syndrome" and an array of fear-mongering tactics designed to destroy practical access to energy sources inside the United States.

The consequence of this long-running fear-mongering over domestic energy is that the United States pays billions of dollars to dangerous governments around the world to extract the same energy without meaningful regulation.  This means that the world is more polluted than it would be from American sources and that Americans fund jobs elsewhere, drive up oil prices, fund an array of overseas activity -- including terrorism.  The specific effort to mess with Texas energy production reduces one of our nation's most productive internal economies.  Americans are flocking to the state, as shown by the 2010 census, and departing from states holding the EPA's view of greenhouse gases.

We would do well to expand the impact statement approach to environmental policies like this one.  What will be the global impact of reducing Texas' ability to produce energy?  Why is allowing a nation such as Mexico unbridled access to Gulf drilling or other forms of fossil fuel extraction superior to Texas' approach?  If the EPA knows that energy consumption is not going to be reduced by regulation, do they bear a burden in increasing global pollution through the executive orders signed by the president?  These are all more than fair questions going forward.

Page Printed from: American Thinker at January 31, 2011 - 09:34:10 AM CST

Steve Baysinger
Legislative Liaison
Texas Tenth Amendment Center
steve.baysinger@tenthamendmentcenter.com