Our Weasel Of The Week Nominees!

weaselIt’s time once again for the Watcher’s Council’s ‘Weasel Of The Week’ nominations, where we pick our choices to compete for the award of the famed Golden Weasel to a public figure who particularly deserves to be slimed and mocked for his or her dastardly deeds during the week. Every Tuesday morning, tune in for the Weasel of the Week nominations!

Here are this weeks’ nominees….

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Legal Surgeon, Amateur Legislator  and Chief Justice John Roberts!

 The Noisy Room :Justice John Roberts for his judicial activism on King v. Burwell and the ultimate betrayal with his ruling in favor of Obamacare this week. The ruling stomped all over state’s rights and bent over backwards to reinterpret the Obamacare statute in favor of federal exchanges. “The somersaults of statutory interpretation they [the Justices of the Supreme Court] have performed …will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence,” concludes Justice Antonin Scalia in his dissent, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito. “And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

“So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere,” he dissents. “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.” The Court’s interpretation is “absurd,” Justice Scalia opined. And right he is. Scalia is a brilliant legal mind and he is horrified by the Leftist turn of the court. This must tear his soul apart. This was simply a political power play and one has to wonder, as I have before, if Chief Roberts has skeletons in his closet that are being used to sway his opinion.
This partisan ruling will have wide-ranging, catastrophic ramifications for America. The majority opinion states that “The combination of no tax credits and an ineffective coverage requirement could well push a State’s individual insurance market into a death spiral.” And it inevitably will. Which in turn, will usher in single-payer healthcare. It’s coming.

“It is implausible that Congress meant the Act to operate in this manner,” Justice John Roberts writes for the majority. Really? Because it looks entirely plausible to me. In fact, choreographed.
Justice Scalia notes that these Justices are “presuppos[ing] the availability of tax credits on both federal and state Exchanges.” In layman terms, that means that federal tax credits that have already been given to millions of people must continue. Along with the tax credits will come higher premiums, crappier healthcare, death panels, higher deductibles and part-time employment as the national norm.

This is tyranny and what you are seeing here is the dissolution of the three branches of constitutional government we are based upon. We now have one executive behemoth branch that is drunk with power and careening out of control, right on schedule. Justice Roberts is a treasonous weasel, whose legacy will include the ending of our Republic as we have known it.

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Tzipras And the Greek Economy!!

 Don Surber : The Weasel of the Week has to be the entire nation of Greece — Mustela Tsipras

These moochers refuse to reduce their spending and in so doing, seem hellbent on bringing down the global economy. Rather than cut their welfare checks by a few drachma, they risk losing the whole thing.
 
 The Supreme Court !!

Ask Marion:As constitutionalist Supreme Court Judge Scalia said last week, ObamaCare should now be renamed SCOTUSCare since the Court has saved the unpopular law twice. He went on to say, “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State’.” Read Scalia’s full dissent HERE.

Brit Hume’s 6/29/15 commentary for Fox News focused on supreme court judges’ practice of ruling on rights that are not actually enumerated or listed in the Constitution, nor have ever previously been considered by a Supreme Court, pointing to the gay marriage decision. Hume said, “Chief Justice Roberts got Obamacare wrong (twice) saving the law from collapse, but he surely got it right on the gay marriage ruling, at least (in part) in writing, “it had nothing to do with the Constitution”. SCOTUS Gay Marriage decision now puts religious institution tax exemptions at risk; opens the door for the same argument on Polygamy; and attacks“>Christianity at its core, the left’s true target, while ignoring Islam’s attitude toward gay marriage or homosexuality.

Around a dozen Federally recognized Native American tribes will continue to ban same-sex couples from getting married on their tribal lands even after the US Supreme Court’s ruling that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 US states. Federally recognized Native American tribes have the same powers as US states to pass laws governing the lands that fall under their reservations and they are not bound by the US Constitution, like states are, so any change on the issue will have to come from

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Forum:Is it Time To Replace The GOP? Would You Support A New Party?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week’s question: Is it Time To Replace The GOP? Would You Support A New Party?

 The Noisy Room : I am very close to that pivot shift. The tipping point for me will be the nomination for 2016. If a true conservative does not clinch the nomination due to RINO machinations, then I will swing to a Third Party, consequences be damned. There will be those who say, if you do that, Hillary Clinton is assured the ascendency. My reply to that is if someone such as Jeb Bush is nominated, Hillary Clinton or the likes of Bernie Sanders will win anyway and we have nothing to lose anymore. I truly believe if a candidate such as Ted Cruz is forced to run on a Third Party ticket, he stands an excellent chance of winning – barring voter fraud and being assassinated by the powers-that-be.

I believe a new Civil Rights movement has just been born out of this week’s Supreme Court rulings. The end of our Constitutional government is upon us with lawless rulings from the bench and the dissolution of the three branches of government into one monstrously corrupt executive behemoth. Leaders will now rise in that movement and Ted Cruz will almost certainly be one of them. He is one of the few with the stones to stand and tell it like it is. He is also a master debater and won’t be silenced. I am joining with other Constitutionalists out there such as Trevor Loudon, James Simpson, Cliff Kincaid, Wild Bill, the Black Robe Regiment and many, many others calling for civil resistance. We will not comply. A third party could very well be at the forefront of the resistance. As Daniel Greenfield of Sultan Knish penned it, be the best saboteur you can be.

The Independent Sentinel : I always said that I would wait until 2016 to give up on Republicans and I would prefer to do that. They are our only hope and they haven’t had the majority they need to overrule Barack Obama on anything except those bills that liberals like.

Oddly, when the Democrats held power, they got what they wanted and now that they don’t hold power, they get what they want. The establishment refuses to use the power of the purse. It appears that the Republican establishment is too weak-willed to fight back, think keeping their jobs is the prime objective, or maybe they are just as liberal as the Democrats.

The establishment is now punishing Conservatives who do what their constituents want over their demands. We see Mitch McConnell ripping into the Confederate flag instead of telling people that flag was a creation of the Democratic party. The list of unappealing Republican establishment responses is endless.

If they don’t cut it out and if they shove a RINO down our throats, then I will join any reasonable movement to start a third party.

JoshuaPundit: I’ve done a lot of thinking about this one, especially as I saw the reaction from all sides to this weeks’ events.

I am by no means a die hard Republican, but I am loyal to certain principles they supposedly represent. I actually hoped that after they won control of congress, we would finally see them do as they promised and uphold those principles again. But we were simply lied to.

I no longer feel it is possible to hijack or take control of the GOP. My own feeling is that this this Regime’s unprecedented NSA spying and secret data collection unearthed things certain congressmen, government figures and even perhaps a Supreme Court Justice or two desperately want hidden. After all, this president has used these tactics before, and that kind of leverage would certainly account for his aggressive attitude since the midterms. Whether it’s that or simple cowardice or avarice, it doesn’t matter.

I also no longer see waiting around until 2016 as an option. The time to organize is now, a year and a half before the elections so that cohesive principles can be agreed on, strategy plotted out and lines of communication opened.We need to act to secure the liberty of ourselves and our prosperity, rather than once again depending on the Republican Party (or the Democrats, for that matter) to do it for us.

Doing so gives us a much larger, united seat at the table. And it provides a framework for something new and badly, badly needed.

And another thing to consider…we may need that unity and that structure before 2016.  These recent decisions have quite a bit of teeth in them,  and the way they’re certain to be enforced by the Obama Administration is pretty clear, at least to me.

Laura Rambeau Lee,Right Reason : Those of us who actually care enough about our country to follow politics have come to the realization that both the Democrat and Republican Party no longer represent the American people. Unfortunately, while we grew up, went to work, raised our families, and pursued our personal version of the American Dream, the “trusted servants” we elected to protect our rights and interests were pursuing their own agendas. When we finally realized what was happening we got involved and worked very hard to get professed “conservative” Republicans elected, only to be bitterly disappointed once they took office.

We now know that no one, or very few, of our elected officials are working and looking out for our interests. The Democrat Party has been infiltrated with progressives bent on destroying everything that has made America great, in particular the middle class. The Republicans are no better, beholden to big corporations and bankers, also at the expense of the middle class. The government has become a massive wealth redistribution machine through the confiscatory theft of our hard earned wages via numerous tax and regulatory policies.

After last week’s Supreme Court decisions, it has become even more apparent that activist judges allow their political leanings to color their decisions instead of considering the cases before them with strict scrutiny and interpretation of the Constitution. We are no longer a nation that follows the rule of law or respects the will of the people or state’s rights.

We do need a third party and I would support one. The question is do we have enough time to turn everything around, and who would stand for us and be our voice.

Bookworm Room : To put it bluntly, I think that the Republican Party sucks eggs. It does not represent conservatives. Instead, as James Taranto long-ago said, it represents Leftists who have a slight edge on Democrats when it comes to fiscal conservativism. The GOPers are on board with every single Progressive idea — they just think that we ought to be a little more responsible about paying as we travel down The Road to Serfdom.

Having said that, I think true conservatives lack the critical mass to create a meaningful third party, especially with a pivotal election less than a year and a half away. Moreover, in this technologically driven age, the Republican Party has the infrastructure, and that’s something that can’t quickly be replicated either.

What I’d like to see is a coup without the Republican Party. Not having previously been of a revolutionary frame of mind, I’m not quite sure how to go about doing this, but I would certainly begin with fighting vigorously in the Republican primaries to destroy every RINO, starting with Boehner and McConnell.

Interestingly, an idea that has been picking up more and more traction in the comments section at my own blog is the feeling that, true to his Chicago roots, Obama has been blackmailing people like Boehner, Roberts, and McConnell. Indeed, my readers feel that the prosecution against Hastert was a little warning to all three of them to toe the Obama line with both the trade deal and the Obamacare ruling.

I have to admit that this idea, crazy though it is, seems more and more feasible lately. It certainly explains a lot of the insanity going on at the highest level of Republican governance, including Trey Gowdy’s peculiar inept and slow Benghazi investigation.

It was Sherlock Holmes who said when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Either that, or I’m getting even more crazy than the Leftists.

The Glittering Eye : In political science there’s something called “Duverger’s law”. That’s the observed tendency of all non-proportional representation, “first past the post” representative democracies to become two party systems. The implication is that any third party is strictly a temporary phenomenon–it won’t be able to stay around long enough to gain any real influence. Add to that the reality that when the electorate is closely divided between the two surviving parties a third party tends to throw elections towards the party it is least like and you’ve got a pretty substantial argument against a third party.

Forty-five years ago I read a very interesting history of the New York State Conservative Party that outlined the circumstances peculiar to New York that made its creation a sensible move and articulated the party’s role: to nudge the Republican Party, in New York at the time very much more liberal than it is now (remember John Lindsay?), in a direction more to its liking. Unless and until we go to a proportional representation system that’s the role I’d see for any third party and I think the Tea Party is filling that role pretty effectively for the Republicans.

Don Surber: Meh

Ask Marion : It is absolutely time for the GOP to go, as did the Whig party, whom they replaced!

The GOP leadership has stabbed their base, as well as the American people in general, in the back and has sold out to the ruling elite, as have the Democrats. For anyone who doubts that or does not keep up with the day to day treachery in Washington, D.C. please read: The Time For Changing Is Now. The time for change ”is” now, and in order to save America and what freedoms we have left, the change must take place swiftly in the form of not a 3rd party but rather a new replacement party, nullifying the GOP.

The creation of a 3rd party while leaving the GOP in place would just weaken the ability of average Americans to fight for and win back what the Constitution gives us. A new party must replace the Republican party. It is something I have fought supporting for a long time, but the past couple of weeks have proven that we cannot wait any longer.

As Sarah Palin said when she was asked this same question. “;I do not wish to leave the Republican Party, but if they leave me…?!?”; Well their leadership seems to be leaving all of us, leaving me no choice but to support a new party to replace them!

Wolf Howling : It is time for a lot of things. One is a complete restructuring of our completely out of control courts. Two is a requirement that no regulation pass into effect until voted on by our elected representatives As to time for a third party, under normal circumstance, the answer would be a resounding yes. The Republican hierarchy are leading the way in enacting Obama’s second term agenda. Having voted Republicans into office in what was a historic wave election, they promptly rolled over and played dead. It is long past time for a third party. Our current crop of Republican congresscritters, as currently constituted, are a fifth column.

That said, we are on the knife’s edge of being so far transformed by Obama and the left, that to support a third party now would be to kiss America – the America envisioned by our Founders and written into our Constitution – goodbye forever. We need to vote for the most conservative candidate – and that appears to me to be either Ted Cruz or Carly Fiorina. We then have to hope against hope that it actually makes a difference in the direction our country is headed.

Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

You’re Sunday Hymn: A Touching Place

For the 13th Sunday in Ordinary time, I’ve chosen “A Touching Place,” words/text by John Bell & Graham Maule & music (Dream Angus) traditional Scottish folk tune.

Performed here by Joanne Hogg & David Fitzgerald with the Choir Of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, abd directed by Mervyn Cousins.

This video was filmed at Selby Abbey for a BBC Songs Of Praise special entitled ‘Northumberland’. Sound recording was at ICC Studios, engineer & co-producer was Neil Costello. Also featured on the recording of this BBC Songs Of Praise special: IKOS/Band, who include: Dave Clifton (Vocals/Guitars), David Fitzgerald (Woodwinds & Reeds), Tim Oliver (Keyboards), Nick Beggs (Chapman Stick & Bass) & Terl Bryant (Drums/Percussion).

Saturday Movie Matinee: Krauthammer: SCOTUS Gay Marriage Decision ‘Is a Huge Loss for Democracy’

Krauthammer: SCOTUS Gay Marriage Decision ‘Is a Huge Loss for Democracy’:

PJTV: SCOTUS Handyman: John Roberts Fixes Broken Laws:

Hillary Clinton’s passionate Defense of Traditional Marriage:

SEE ALSO: 

PJ Media: Hillary Clinton, Who Opposed Gay Marriage Until 2013, Is Totes ‘Proud’ of Today’s SCOTUS Ruling

Newsmax, Malzberg | Andrew McCarthy discusses Freddie Gray Autopsy Report and the recent SCOTUS rulings:

Interview begins with McCarthy’s take on the Freddie Gray autopsy report:

Krauthammer and Ben Carson on Supreme Court decision to uphold ObamaCare subsidies:

Megyn Kelly, Richard Fowler Engage In Epic Duel Over SPLC’s ‘Women Against Islam’ Hate List:

SEE ALSO:

PJ Media: SPLC Issues Hit List of 12 Conservative Women Who Speak Out Against Radical Islam

NY Times: Right-Wing Extremists More Dangerous Than Jihadis:

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey has a few things to say about that.

Carly Fiorina answers viewers’ questions:

Steve Malzburg Show, Newsmax: Rob Astorino on Socially Engineered Neighborhoods:

Via Right Reason, Obama’s Forced Diversity in Housing Is Not a New Development:

Go to Westchester Gov.com and read some of the letters and correspondence from HUD to Westchester County. The people must demand that local control of zoning and housing issues remain a local issue.

PJTV: Black Racism Infinitely More Pervasive Than White Racism…

Find out why Bill Whittle thinks Black racists are infinitely more pervasive than white racists… And, hear how Democrats are trying to divide us..

Colin Flaherty: “He aint do no wrong: He just shot a cop. Thassall.”

Dad catches Cougar checking out the Family Cat Through the glass door:

Mom: “Where are the kids?”

Dad: “Out back…”

The Council Has Spoken!! Our Watcher’s Council Results

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The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“A republic, if you can keep it.” -Benjamin Frankin

“What is euphemistically called government-corporate ‘partnership’ is just government coercion, political favoritism, collectivist industrial policy, and old-fashioned federal boondoggles nicely wrapped up in a bright-colored ribbon. It doesn’t work.” – Ronald Reagan

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” – William Pitt, in the House of Commons November 18, 1783

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This week’s winning essay,Joshuapundit’s The Time For Changing Is Now was my reaction to the Republican leadership’s betrayal of the party’s conservative base to push through ObamaTrade…and my reflection what this and similar betrayals mean.

Here’s a slice:

The Republican leadership today managed to threaten or bribe enough GOP congressmen to pass something most Americans overwhelmingly did not want passed – ‘Fast Track’ authority, the TPA for President Obama on his top secret trade bill that mostly isn’t one.

The vote was 218-208, with 28 Democrats voting for it.

The fast track authority for President Obama was originally paired with another bill called the TAA, a bogus welfare crumb for all the American workers whom will lose their jobs thanks to Obama’s secret trade bill. The combination legislation was voted down last week, but the TPA fast track was shoved through on its own and now goes to the Senate.The GOP leadership has promised to put the TAA provision, which expires in September to a separate vote, which the GOP leaders have promised will be nearly simultaneous.

Oh, I’m sure it will be…after the rest of the secret trade bill gets passed. And of course, as RINO Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, the Republican Gruppenführer for Obama’s trade agenda tells us, the peasants like you and I will find out what’s in it when it’s passed, since on a need to know basis, we’re not even on the list.

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Neither is most of congress, since the administration our president told us would be “the most transparent in history’ is anything but. Only a handful have actually seen it, because it’s locked in a secret room and no one is allowed to take notes or photograph any of it. Based on Wikileaks and a few things Senator Jeff Sessions has said, it’s pretty easy to extrapolate why Barack Obama wants this so bad, and very little of it is actually concerned about trade.

According to the draft provisions,a brand new, unelected international bureaucracy is to be formed, in which America would have the same vote as Qatar. Countries could be barred from trying to control where their citizens’ personal data is held or whether it’s accessible from outside the country.

The Healthcare Annex, according to WikiLeaks, “seeks to regulate state schemes for medicines and medical devices. It forces healthcare authorities to give big pharmaceutical companies more information about national decisions on public access to medicine, and grants corporations greater powers to challenge decisions they perceive as harmful to their interests.”

In other words, congress would no longer have sole authority to over reforming MediCare and of course, ObamaCare. And the FDA would be subject to this international bureaucracy that’s being set up as well.

Immigration is a big part of this too. U.S. laws, what remains of them, would now be subject to this international agreement. It calls for special fast tracking of visas that essentially would turn ICE into a rubber stamp. If this passes, look for thousands of American jobs to be replaced by foreigners at vastly lower wages and benefits as fast as corporate America can process the paperwork. And it allows much easier fast tracking of corporate off shoring of American jobs, putting Americans in competition with workers happy to receive less than a dollar an hour in countries like Vietnam.

Of course, there are also provisions to steal billions of dollars from America’s tax payers in the name of global warming as well, while driving utility costs sky high.

Even more shocking, TPA gives congress no leeway on changing any of this. No amendments are allowed, simply a yes or no vote.

Overall, it’s a great plan to finish bankrupting America’s middle class and subject our sovereignty to the ‘international community.’ No wonder this president wanted it so bad and worked so hard to push it through. None of this was possible without the fast track TPA authority. And a GOP majority House just gave it to him.

Here’s Louie Golmert (R-TX), one of the House’s honest men, trying to stem the tide (H/T The Noisy Room and The Right Planet):



So did Senator Jeff Sessions
, who is one of the few congress members who has actually seen the proposed trade bill locked in that secret room:

“It is essential that there be no misunderstanding: fast-track preapproves the formation of not only the unprecedentedly large Trans-Pacific Partnership, but an unlimited number of such agreements over the next six years,” Sessions said. “Those pacts include three of the most ambitious ever contemplated. After TPP comes the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union, followed by the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), seeking as one its goals labor mobility among more than 50 nations. Together, these three international compacts encompass three-fourths of the world’s GDP. Including the nations whose membership is being courted for after enactment, the countries involved would encompass nearly 90 percent of global GDP. Yet, through fast-track, Congress will have authorized the President to ink these deals before a page of them has been made public. Then, the Executive sends Congress ‘implementing’ legislation to change U.S. law—legislation which cannot be amended, cannot be filibustered, and will not be subjected to the Constitutional requirement for a two-thirds treaty vote.”

“According to the European Commission, the TiSA agreement—which most House and Senate members did not know about when they voted—will follow in the footsteps of the WTO’s Trade in Services Provisions, which has already inhibited the U.S. from making needed immigration changes,” Sessions said. “The European Commission says the EU ‘wants as many countries as possible to join the agreement.’ We have already seen how the EU has curtailed sovereignty in Europe; we do not want to follow in its footsteps.”

With regard to TPP, Sessions warned that America has “never seen” anything like it before—and that it’ll force the United States into a version of the European Union he calls “a new Pacific Union.”

“This nation has never seen an agreement that compares to the TPP, which forms a new Pacific Union,” Sessions said. “This is far more than a trade agreement, but creates a self-governing and self-perpetuating Commission with extraordinary implications for American workers and American sovereignty. Such a historic international regulatory Commission should never be fast-tracked, and should never be put on a path to passage until every word has been publicly scrutinized, every question answered, and every last power understood by Congress and the American people.”

This is still going to be bounced back and forth between the Senate and the House, but the fix is likely in for this colossal betrayal. We’re being told that this ‘free trade bill’ will benefit American workers. It will not. Actually, it will cost many of them their livelihoods as visas for foreign workers to replace them at cheaper wages are rubber-stamped. One more time – this isn’t primarily a trade agreement at all.

I just heard Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) trying to sell it that way on one of the talk shows, saying we didn’t have trade agreement with Japan, or China, or a number of other countries. Well and good senator. What’s wrong with the normal process of sending diplomats to negotiate them on a per country basis and submitting them to congress for approval as we’ve done in the past?

Or is it just that your corporate donors want it done this way, in stealth and secrecy? Because it isn’t going to benefit the American economy so much as milk it dry for the benefit of the well connected…and of course, their servile toadies in congress.

So once again, we’re faced with outright betrayal. Virtually everything the Republican Party campaigned on in 2010 and especially in 2014 was an outright lie. Instead of being ‘pulled out root and branch’ as Mitch McConnell told voters in 2014 in Kentucky, ObamaCare is being funded by congress and the GOP establishment is already plotting to save it in case the Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional, which it always was.

President Obama’s amnesty of illegal aliens by executive order? In spite of all the rhetoric, that’s being funded too. We essentially have no borders anymore, or any standards whatsoever on whom we let stay here.

Shutting down President Obama’s appointments of radical judges and federal appointees at offices like the FCC? Or his radical new racialist attorney general? Using the nuclear option, the way Harry Reid did to stop over 200 bills the house passed from even going to committee? Nothing. The GOP’s congressional leaders have made sure that President Obama has gotten whatever he wanted.

Barack Obama’s EPA war on coal? Same story.

And forget about congress using the power of the purse to compel the release of documents and the testimony of those involved in major scandals like Benghazi, the IRS targeting political opponents or the Clinton Foundation’s dealings.

I have speculated on these pages that with all the warrentless NSA spying and data collection going on, it’s quite possible this president has something juicy on key Republicans like McConnell and Boehner. Or it may be they’re simply being paid off in one way or another.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter. What does is the realization of this foul betrayal and to look at Tolstoy’s eternal question; what then must we do?

Much more, and an update at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winners were Gillespie & Welch at Reason.Com’s Hit and Run Blog with How Government Stifled Reason’s Free Speech submitted by Rhymes With Right.

This is an excellent complement to this week’s winning Council essay because [t concerns government overreach and tyranny. Do read it.

Here are this week’s full results. Only The Right Planet was unable to vote this week, but was not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Council Winners

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnDISIS Dirty Bomb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Council Winners

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

Scalia’s Scorching ObamaCare Dissent + a Round-up of Reactions

Well. It was a Republic only if we could keep it, right?

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Via Weasel Zippers:

1. “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’”

2. “Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.”

3. “Today’s interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of.”

4. “And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

5. “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.”

REACTIONS:

Leon Wolfe, Red State: The Roberts Court: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss:

For all the liberal bloviating about the new direction of SCOTUS under CJ Roberts, today’s opinion in King v. Burwell demonstrates that essentially, nothing has changed. The court is still forced into feckless pragmatism whenever a conservative principle is at stake, but is perfectly willing to venture beyond the expressed will of Congress in order to advance liberal agenda items on their own initiative.

Today’s decision, upholding the Obamacare subsidies in states that did not set up an exchange, is simply indefensible as a matter of statutory interpretation. There is no other way to put it – nothing in any sort of legal training from any reputable university would have led anyone to believe that the Court would have been permitted to essentially rewrite the statute the way they did today. And make no mistake, that is exactly what they did, in refusing to apply Chevron deference and merely stating that henceforth Obamacare says something different than what its actual words contain.

In many ways, this decision (which was joined by both Roberts and Kennedy) is the most irresponsible arrogation of power by the Court in decades. When the Roberts court upheld Obamacare initially as a tax, despite the fact that neither side had argued or claimed that it was a tax, I actually found that to be a defensible decision and generally respectful of the idea that SCOTUS should only invalidate a Congressional statute under relatively extreme circumstances. However, what the Roberts court did today was to essentially elect themselves to the positions of both Congress and the President and amend a duly passed statute on their own initiative. This was a blatantly unconstitutional power grab and Roberts’ decision to author it adds another stain to the legacy of George W. Bush.

NRO: Roberts Rules Wrongly:

he Affordable Care Act was drafted with extraordinary carelessness given its importance, and conservatives who say that the Obama administration has implemented it contrary to its plain meaning have strong arguments. So opined six justices of the Supreme Court, including its most liberal members, in King v. Burwell. That is, unfortunately, the best thing about the majority opinion, which labors mightily to free the law from the inconvenience of its text. The text of the law authorizes federal subsidies on health-insurance exchanges “established by the states,” but does not authorize them on exchanges established by the federal government. Since most states have not established exchanges, reading the law the way it was written would limit the law’s reach. The administration therefore decided not to do so — and the Court has blessed its decision, and barred future administrations from revisiting it. To reach this result, Chief Justice John Roberts first implausibly read “established by the state” to be an ambiguous phrase — Justice Antonin Scalia and the other two conservative dissenters thoroughly dismantled his arguments — and then chose the possible meaning that would best serve the act’s purposes. This second portion of Roberts’s argument has a superficial plausibility, but it too lacks merit.

Freedomworks: King v. Burwell: Words Have No Meaning if Inconvenient:

Some words apparently have no meaning, even when written in plain English, according to a majority of Supreme Court justices. Today the Court reached its long awaited decision in King v. Burwell. The Court ruled 6-3 for Burwell, holding that the federal subsidies can continue to flow to states that have not established an exchange.

Chief Justice Roberts once again wrote the opinion defending ObamaCare, and was joined by Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan. Justice Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion that was joined by Justices Thomas and Alito.

The text of ObamaCare was clear, federal subsidies were only available for insurance that purchased through exchanges “established by the states.” Today six justices, who are supposed to represent the best of the legal community, have turned these plain words on their head. These six justices have decided that “established by the states” can also mean established by the federal government.

Whereas most Americans see plain meaning in the words “established by the states,” Chief Justice Roberts saw ambiguity. Writing for the Court, the Chief Justice wrote that the law was not clear, but that the intention of the law was to improve health insurance markets, not destroy them. Much of his opinion was focused on protecting ObamaCare from a “death spiral.”

Brian Darling, Human Events:  Justice John Roberts is No Conservative – Time for Congress to Repeal ObamaCare:

One of my friends jokes that U.S. Supreme Court John Roberts is a liberal. I used to laugh him off – not anymore.

President George W. Bush’s legacy was hurt with the King v. Burwell decision by the Supreme Court to uphold ObamaCare. Chief Justice John Roberts, for a second time, saved ObamaCare using faulty legal analysis and a results oriented logic. This is further evidence that President Bush made a bad decision to nominate a stealth liberal lawyer to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Roberts is morphing into retired Justice David Souter right before our eyes. The parallels are stunning.

But here’s the thing to remember as you punch your computer screen: It was already here to stay no matter how the Court ruled today. If Roberts and Kennedy had come down the other way and punted the subsidies back to Congress, there’s not a whisper of a doubt about what would have happened. You know it, I know it, Ramesh Ponnuru knows it. If it was left to the GOP to decide whether to save O-Care, writes Ponnuru, the caucus would have quickly broken into three groups. Group one: Hell no, we won’t reinstate the subsidies. Group two: Maybe we could reinstate them in return for some concessions? Group three: YES WE MUST REINSTATE THEM OR WE’LL LOSE THE ELECTION. Ponnuru:

Republicans won’t be able to muster a majority of the House for Group 1’s preference: Too many Congress members want to protect people from losing their insurance, or at least don’t want to be blamed if they do. Group 2’s preference won’t get a majority either: Group 1 won’t vote for it because it keeps the subsidies, and Democrats won’t vote for it because it weakens Obamacare.

In the end, I predict that Republican leaders will end up going with Group 3’s favored extension of the subsidies with little in the way of change to the Affordable Care Act.

Judicial Watch Statement on Supreme Court’s Ruling in King v. Burwell:

Today’s Burwell decision is an affront to the rule of law and constitutional self-government.  No federal judge has the power to rewrite the law, which is what the majority did today in Burwell.  Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kennedy, Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan took part in an unconstitutional power grab every bit as unlawful as President Obama’s rewrite of Obamacare.  None of these justices have the constitutional power to rewrite major components of Obamacare in order to “save it.”  Ironically, the majority cites the corruption of the passage of Obamacare as an excuse for the judiciary’s own corrupt, nonsensical fix of the same law.  Congress still can vindicate its power and uphold the rule of law.  This terrible decision has no binding effect on choices by Congress to defund President Obama’s despotic rewrite of the law and prevent the IRS from unlawfully providing insurance subsidies.  And, of course, the impeachment power still remains for executive branch officials who won’t obey the law.  The Court makes a policy pronouncement, all evidence to the contrary, that “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them.”  The justices in the majority ought to have the honesty to run for Congress if they want to write rather interpret law.  Our republican form of government is weakened when the president and six Supreme Court justices disregard federal statutes in favor of their own policy choices.

Benny Johnson, IRJ: The 2015 Running of the Interns:

running interns

The interns run because recording devices are strictly forbidden inside the court. Therefore, broadcast interns must run hard copies of Supreme Court decisions out to their network broadcasting locations in front of SCOTUS.

It is not a short distance:

 running interns