Day Two Obamacare & the SCOTUS … Strike Two … Justice Kennedy Says Individual Mandate Fundamentally Changes Relationship Of Gov’t … Others Ask, What About Being Made to Buy Broccoli & Burial Insurance?

DAY TWO OF OBAMA CARE BEING ARGUED AT THE US SUPREME COURT AND STRIKE TWO FOR OBAMA …

The Obamacare vs. We the People at the SCOTUS was billed as one of the most important court cases in recent history. The federal government thru Obamacare is forcing Americans to buy and “approved” Obama insurance and forcing people into a market, rather than regulating a market. One would have thought that Obama’s legal mouth pieces would have been more prepared. I guess not.

Wow, Solicitor General Verrilli stuttered and stammered his way through his presentation to the SCOTUS like President Obama speaking to the public without a teleprompter. Can you say that day two and the government defending the individual mandate was a complete disaster? YES!!! As stated at Mother Jones, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. should be grateful to the Supreme Court for refusing to allow cameras in the courtroom. Time after time it appeared that Verrilli was so ill prepared and searched for answers to simple Justice’s questions. As opined at the Daily Caller, Verrilli was asked, If the government can force people to buy health insurance, justices wanted to know, can it require people to buy burial insurance? One would think that they would have prepared for such. Not so much. However, this is what happens when one is asked to defend the indefensible. One day Obamacare penalty is tax, the next, it is not.

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. should be grateful to the Supreme Court for refusing to allow cameras in the courtroom, because his defense of Obamacare on Tuesday may go down as one of the most spectacular flameouts in the history of the court.

Stepping up to the podium, Verrilli stammered as he began his argument. He coughed, he cleared his throat, he took a drink of water. And that was before he even finished the first part of his argument. Sounding less like a world-class lawyer and more like a teenager giving an oral presentation for the first time, Verrilli delivered a rambling, apprehensive legal defense of liberalism’s biggest domestic accomplishment since the 1960s—and one that may well have doubled as its eulogy.

As reported at RCP, Justice Kennedy stated that the “Individual Mandate” would fundamentally change the relationship between the government and “We the People” (VIDEO). BINGO!!! Who would have thought that Justice Kennedy would have been such a skeptic?

SOLICITOR GENERAL VERRILLI: I agree, except, Mr. Chief Justice, that what the Court has said as I read the Court’s cases is that the way in which you ensure that the Federal Government stays in its sphere and the sphere reserved for the States is protected is by policing the boundary: Is the national government regulating economic activity with a substantial effect on interstate commerce?

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But the reason, the reason this is concerning, is because it requires the individual to do an affirmative act. In the law of torts our tradition, our law, has been that you don’t have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and you do not have a duty to stop him absent some relation between you. And there is some severe moral criticisms of that rule, but that’s generally the rule.

And here the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases and that changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in the very fundamental way.

Justice Antonin Scalia asked how the individual mandate was different from forcing Americans to buy broccoli? BTW, 87% of Americans agree with Scalia’s mandate on broccoli.

“If the government can do that, what else can it do?” asked Justice Antonin Scalia, referring to the individual mandate portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He then questioned whether Congress could also require individuals to buy vegetables, such as broccoli.

No matter what the outcome is in the SCOTUS, this is going to be damning to Barack Obana in 2012.