Supreme Court health care decision (full text)

The Supreme Court has ruled that Congress can levy tax penalties on individuals without health insurance, delivering a victory to the Obama administration. Read the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act below.



Supreme Court Health Care Decision Text

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich Announces Departure from Department of Justice

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich Announces Departure from Department of Justice

The Justice Department announced today that Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Ronald Weich will be leaving the department to join the University of Baltimore School of Law as its new dean.   Assistant Attorney General Weich was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate in April, 2009.

                                              

Judith C. Appelbaum, who has served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA), will serve as acting assistant attorney general following Weich’s departure.

“Ron’s leadership has been instrumental in realizing crucial legislative achievements, and I thank him for his tireless advocacy of department priorities,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.  “I am proud of the work done by the Office of Legislative Affairs under Ron’s watch to advance legislation vital to ensuring justice.”

                                                                                                                         

“Serving the department has been a tremendous privilege, and I’m pleased with OLA’s accomplishments over the last three years,” said Assistant Attorney General Weich.   “We have worked effectively with Congress to advance the mission and goals of the Justice Department.”

Under the leadership of Assistant Attorney General Weich, the Office of Legislative Affairs has worked to strengthen the department’s relationship with Congress.  The office has represented the department in connection with numerous legislative achievements on issues of central importance to the department, including the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act; the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Tribal Law and Order Act.

The office also has worked to advance measures that have not yet been enacted, including the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2012, the FISA Amendments Extension Act and the Nuclear Terrorism Conventions Implementation Act.  

Assistant Attorney General Weich also managed the department’s efforts to obtain Senate confirmation of numerous senior department officials, including the deputy attorney general, assistant attorneys general, law enforcement component heads, U.S. attorneys and U.S. marshals.

Prior to joining the Justice Department, Assistant Attorney General Weich served as chief counsel to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.   He earlier served as counsel to Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Arlen Specter, and as a partner in the law firm of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP.

Additional information about the Office of Legislative Affairs is available atwww.justice.gov/ola/ .

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Attorney General

Judicial Watch Blog Report Starts Media Brush Fire over Stealth Amnesty

From time to time, I've mentioned the work of our excellent blogger, Irene Garcia, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who tracks corruption news every day for Judicial Watch on our blogCorruption Chronicles.  (Click here to check out Irene's work.)

Well this week, on April 2nd to be exact, Irene started a bit of a media brush fire with a blog piece on the Obama administration's stealth amnesty scheme. First, let's take a look at what Irene reported in her blog entitled, "DHS to Grant Aliens 'Unlawful Presence Waivers:'"

In its quest to implement stealth amnesty, the Obama Administration is working behind the scenes to halt the deportation of certain illegal immigrants by granting them "unlawful presence waivers." 

The new measure would apply to illegal aliens who are relatives of American citizens. Here is how it would work, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcementposted in today's Federal Register, the daily journal of the U.S. government; the agency will grant "unlawful presence waivers" to illegal aliens who can prove they have a relative that's a U.S. citizen. 

Currently such aliens must return to their native country and request a waiver of inadmissibility in an existing overseas immigrant visa process. In other words, they must enter the U.S. legally as thousands of foreigners do on a yearly basis. Besides the obvious security issues, changing this would be like rewarding bad behavior in a child. It doesn't make sense.

Irene then properly characterized the policy as part of the Obama administration's "bigger plan to blow off Congress," as it attempts to enact amnesty absent any immigration reform passed by Congress.

Indeed, as I've pointed out many times in this space, the Obama administration is intent on granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants with or without approval by Congress -- and despite stiff public opposition.  

Granting these new "unlawful presence waivers" is just one amnesty tool. Another is the DHS policy of "selective deportation," which means that immigration officials can simply use "prosecutorial discretion" to dismiss deportation proceedings against a wide variety of illegal aliens, even thoseconvicted of serious crimes. (You can read more about the Obama administration's stealth amnesty plan, including documents uncovered by Judicial Watch as part of its aggressive investigation of the scandal, here.)

The Drudge Report immediately seized upon Irene's story, posting it to the site with the headline "Big Sis to Grant Illegal Aliens 'Unlawful Presence Waivers," along with a photo of Obama Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The Internet then took hold of the story and ran with it, as our critics at the leftist Media Matters noted.

And, it all started with your Judicial Watch.

Of course, the often overlooked component of the Obama amnesty plan is its impact on the 2012 elections. By granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, the Obama administration/campaign surely hopes to bring a massive group of dependable (and potentially illegal) voters to the polls in November 2012 to help re-elect the president. 

This, combined with the Justice Department's unwillingness to enforce elements of the National Voter Registration Act requiring states to keep clean voter rolls, is a threat to the integrity of the 2012 elections.

For this reason, and many others, JW launched its 2012 Election Integrity Project. Our investigation has found that many states have voter rolls that have more "voters" on the rolls than individuals eligible to vote.  Evidently, some jurisdictions are not even bothering to remove dead people from the voter rolls.  This is a recipe for voter fraud, so we've told election officials to clean up the rolls or we will file a lawsuit to force them to do so.

And speaking of election integrity, I'd like to let you know about a very important event that will take place April 27-28, 2012 in Houston, Texas. Our client True the Vote will be hosting a 2012 True the Vote Summit to "protect the virtue of our vote and the integrity of our elections." I'm scheduled to be on-hand to talk about Judicial Watch's election integrity work along with an impressive list of guest speakers. If you have the ability to make the trip, I highly recommend it. Here's a link to the invitation.  Hope to see you there.

Obama Takes Preemptive Swipe at U.S. Supreme Court

I warned you last week of the plan by President Obama and his "gangster government" allies to undermine the rule of law by unfairly attacking the integrity of the Supreme Court.  Sure enough, President Obama began an attack on the High Court this week that will go down in infamy in the histories of relations between the judicial and executive branches. 

On Monday, Obama, purposely I believe, attacked the Supreme Court with the following remarks during press conference: 

And I think it's important, and I think the American people understand, and the I think the justices should understand, that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to ensure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care.  So there's not only an economic element to this, and a legal element to this, but there's a human element to this.  And I hope that's not forgotten in this political debate. 
 
Ultimately, I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected congress.  And I would like to remind conservative commentators that for years what we have heard is that the biggest problem is judicial activism and that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.  Well, this is a good example and I'm pretty confident this court will recognize that and not take that step.

This is devious nonsense coming from Constitutional-Law-Professor-in-Chief. 

First, the president says striking down Obamacare would be unprecedented. Not even the liberal Los Angeles Times is buying that one:

...it's simply not true that it would be "unprecedented" for the court to overturn such a law. Since Marbury vs. Madison in 1803, the court has seen "judicial review" of laws as part of its responsibility, and over the years it has ruled many unconstitutional. That's entirely appropriate.

Furthermore, the implication of the remark was that the number of votes in favor of a bill was somehow relevant to its constitutionality. It's not. Otherwise, whichever party or point of view is in the majority would be free to tyrannize the minority.

(Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department is now arguing that the courts should throw out a federal marriage law passed by Congress and signed into law by Bill Clinton, was forced by an appellate panel to submit a letter affirming the role of the courts in our constitutional system. The Court evidently was taken aback by Obama's attack and wanted reassurance from the Justice Department that it wasn't seeking to overturn Marbury vs. Madison.)

Regarding Obama's comments about conservatives and "judicial activism," apparently Obama does not have a full understanding of the term. Conservatives are completely opposed to efforts by judges to legislate from the bench - that is, create new laws or rights to satisfy their policy whims, or to appear "empathic" to one group or another. (That's what Obama means when he asks the court to consider the "human element" of the decision, which he obviously prefers to the legal element.)   

Creating laws is the business of the legislative branch, and when it's done from the bench it is judicial activism pure and simple. However, most conservatives have no problem when judges strike down laws that violate the U.S. Constitution, especially a law that, if allowed, to stand, would obliterate any limits on the ability of the federal government to regulate our lives. (You can read our amicus curiaebrief filed with the court here.)

Finally, regarding the President's professed concerns about the power of this "unelected group of people," The Washington Examiner nailed it on the head: "Obama's attack on 'an unelected group of people' is pretty rich, considering that the only way his health care law plans to reduce health spending is by empowering 15 unelected bureaucrats to set wage and price controls for the entire health care industry." 

To say nothing of the numerous unelected czars the president has appointed who wield tremendous power but are not subject to a Senate vote, or congressional vetting and oversight.

Of course, conservatives understand that it is because judges are "unelected" that we must make sure that judges who are appointed to the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, understand that the role is not to ignore the rule of law by legislating from the bench. 

That Obama would seek to intimidate the Supreme Court as it considers an important constitutional question is yet one more example of his contempt for the rule of law. He seems more concerned about the political will to power and less about preserving and protecting the U.S. Constitution, as his oath of office requires.

As Obama abuses his office, Judicial Watch is responding with an investigation into any efforts to intimidate the Supreme Court. We suspect there's more out there, and when we find it we will alert you.    

THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT HOLDS THAT WHERE TWO PEOPLE IN A GROUP OF FOUR ADMIT TO POSSESSING FIREARMS AND IT IS UNCLEAR IF THE POSSESSION IS LAWFUL, LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS MAY BRIEFLY DETAIN ALL FOUR FOR SAFETY REASONS

WRITTEN BY FEDAGENT ON 29 MARCH 2012. POSTED IN CASE LAW UPDATE

Omar Lewis was in a group of four men.  Police officers approached the group and asked if any had firearms.  Lewis did not respond, but two others replied in the affirmative.  The police detained all four men.  It was later discovered that Lewis was an alien in possession of a firearm, even though police did not have any particularized suspicion that Lewis had broken any law.  The court of appeals found that law enforcement officers did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they briefly detained Lewis.

At 8:50 pm on February 6, 2009, Omar Lewis, Carlos Evans, Charles McRae, and another individual were standing in the parking lot of a Seawinds restaurant in the Pine Hills area of Orange County, Florida.  Pine Hills was known to local law enforcement to be a high-crime area with a high rate of gun- and drug-related crimes.  The four men were talking and looking through the trunk of their vehicle during business hours.  Although the men had parked outside of a designated parking spot, this was not a criminal offense in Florida. 

Deputies Noel Bojko and Scott Stiles noticed that the men were moving computer equipment around in the trunk of the vehicle, an activity which they found unusual, but agreed amongst themselves was insufficient to conclude that a robbery or drug sale had recently occurred.  Accordingly, the deputies decided to approach the men and start up a casual conversation. 

The deputies approached and asked the four men something along the lines of “how is it going[?]”  The men replied that they were “just hanging out in the parking lot.”  The deputies then asked if any of the four men had fire arms.  Up until this point, it was undisputed that the encounter was consensual.  However, in response to the questions, McRae and Evans answered that they indeed had firearms while Lewis and the other man said nothing; the deputies immediately drew their weapons and ordered all of the men to sit on the ground and show their hands.  At this point, it was undisputed that the encounter was no longer consensual and the men had been seized. 

Three of the men complied immediately with the order to put their hands up.  Evans explained that his firearm was in the trunk of the vehicle and not on his person.  McRae explained that he had a concealed firearm in his waistband and later in the encounter would produce a valid carry and conceal license.  However, Lewis shuffled around for approximately ten seconds before complying and sitting near the other men. 

Around this time, Corporal Steven Jenny arrived on the scene and noticed Lewis looking extremely nervous.   The officers then noticed an automatic pistol near the area where Lewis had been “scooting” around.  The officers had not observed Lewis discard the weapon but concluded that he was the only individual who could have discarded the weapon at that location.  Subsequent testing would reveal Lewis’ DNA on the firearm.  

Lewis was arrested for a violation of a Florida firearms statute.  It was subsequently discovered that Lewis was an alien and the state charges were dropped in favor of prosecution under a federal law making it illegal for an alien to carry firearms. 

While facing trial in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Lewis challenged the evidence against him in a suppression motion.  The district court concluded that, as McRae and Evans had apparently lawfully possessed their firearms, the officers had no cause to detain any of the men and that, in any event, the officers had no particularized suspicion that Lewis had engaged in any crime and thus lacked authority to detain him.  Accordingly, the district court suppressed the evidence against Lewis. 

The Government appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which reversed the suppression ruling. 

The court of appeals found that the district court had applied an improper standard of review.  Once McRae and Evans had admitted that they had firearms, police officers had reasonable suspicion to detain the men briefly on suspicion of violating state firearms laws.  The fact that police would later discover that McRae and Evans were lawfully carrying their weapons was irrelevant – in a moment of heightened risk, and where officers had a reasonable belief the law may be broken, the officers were able to initiate a stop in order to resolve any ambiguity in whether the law was broken. 

The court of appeals also rejected the logic that in this group setting, the officers needed particularized suspicion toward Lewis himself.  As officers believed they faced substantial immediate danger in light of two individuals claiming to possess firearms, they could use their discretion to briefly detain all involved individuals, even if there is only particularized suspicion to some members of the group.  The court explained that “[o]nce officers had that reasonable suspicion, they were not obligated to let three of the four associated individuals walk about freely while they investigated McRae, in light of the officers’ powerful concern for their own safety.”

Accordingly, the court of appeals reversed the district court’s ruling on the suppression motion and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings.

The case, United States v. Lewis, is available here.