Pirate's Cove

That’s right, today is the day the oral arguments start over the constitutionality of Affordable Care Act. Perhaps they should start with the name, since the legislation is anything but affordable. Anyhow, the NY Times points out that day 1 will be excruciatingly boring, as it will be a discussion over whether the High Court can even hear arguments, or has to wait till people are actually taxed first.

(Politico) How will politics enter the chamber?

Overt politicking in front of the justices is unusual, but they can hardly ignore the political firestorm over the president’s health care law.

One of the liberal justices may say or at least hint early on that if the law is as bad as critics contend, surely the public will correct that by voting Obama out this fall. Indeed, Democrats’ midterm losses in Congress were due in no small part to passage of the law.

Would anyone be shocked that any of the liberal judges have already determined that they do not want to take a chance that the individual mandate is shot down, potentially killing the entire law, and want to put it back in the election realm? Republicans need to hold the House, and win the White House and Senate to repeal this intrusive and horrendous law.

At first glance, a ruling that the mandate is unconstitutional would appear to be a humiliating blow to the president. But Obama might perform political jiujitsu, turning a negative ruling to his advantage by firing up his base and campaigning against the court this fall.

Obama has already shown his willingness to drag the court into the political fray, as he did during his 2010 State of the Union address when he blasted the justices in person over their Citizens United campaign finance ruling. Chief Justice John Roberts later called the episode “very troubling.”

If memory serves, and Politico already mentioned, Democrats were smacked around in a “historic” manner, to use one of Obama’s favorite words, in 2010. Democrats mostly refused to even discuss ObamaCare then, and have mostly avoided it since. Don’t expect Democrats to want to discus it during this election cycle.

With polls showing Americans evenly divided on the law and the individual mandate deeply unpopular, many Republicans are counting on the “repeal Obamacare” banner to help carry them to victory in November. But if the court undoes the law, that rallying cry could be moot.

Actually, every poll shows many more want this travesty to be repealed that want to keep it. And most want it passionately repealed. Americans are certainly not evenly divided.

The other 5 include

• Watch for the questions the Justices act for which way the wind blows
• The “broccoli” question: if the Central Government can force people to purchase insurance, can they force people to buy other products?
• What happens to the rest of the bill if the mandate is killed?
• Will the court punt, as discussed in the NY Times article?

There are a few other questions that could be asked, such as “how many liberals will get arrested over the next few days during their protests, and will they literally poop on stuff around the Supreme Court area?” and “What idiotic thing will Obama say about the Supreme Court in the next few days, and how bad will he freak out when the Mandate is killed?”

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.