WilliamW Wrote:Neither complaint makes any specific reference to the portion of the bill that nationalizes the student loan industry.

Quote:MARCH 25, 2010

President Obama and Congressional Democrats have been criticized for being antibusiness. But Washington is about to bestow a huge gift upon one particular type of business—the type that doesn't pay taxes.

Despite bipartisan opposition, this week the Democrats hope to use budget reconciliation in the Senate to ram through changes to the health-care bill the House passed on Sunday. Coming along for the legislative ride is a federal takeover of the student-loan market.

On the heels of recent changes in the law that discourage private loans to students, the new reconciliation bill includes a ban on private companies originating federally guaranteed loans. All such loans will now come directly from the U.S. Department of Education.

This plan is hitched to ObamaCare for several reasons. For one, the student-loan takeover could never attract a filibuster-proof 60 votes if it had to pass as a stand-alone measure, and it might not even get 51. The government's bogus accounting for student loans also creates the illusion that this bill will help save enough money in the first five years to protect the ObamaCare provisions from Republican challenges under budget rules. Remember, budget reconciliation is supposed to be about preventing deficits, so it takes a mother lode of accounting gimmicks to claim that the bill's spending binge is a cost-saver.

Part of this reconciliation fairy tale is that cutting out the private-lender middlemen will save billions every year as students borrow directly from the feds. But while Democrats are eliminating a revenue stream at for-profit companies, they are simultaneously creating another one for a handful of favored nonprofit companies.

Currently, for loans that the government makes directly to students, the Department of Education conducts competitive bidding and hires private companies to service the loans. But in the pending bill, several dozen nonprofit firms will be eligible to receive no-bid servicing contracts on up to 100,000 student accounts for each firm.

Which nonprofit organizations will qualify? California's ALL Student Loan looks to be a big winner, thanks to language written by Representative George Miller of California. ALL Student Loan may have helped its cause by retaining the services of Vincent Reusing, a lobbyist whom the Chronicle of Higher Education has described as a "personal friend" of Mr. Miller.

"The person that any lender chooses to be their lobbyist is irrelevant to Chairman Miller," says Rachel Racusen, a spokesman for Mr. Miller. She adds, "Under this legislation, nonprofit lenders will be required to meet the same high-quality servicing standards as for-profit lenders, including measures of borrower satisfaction."

To be fair to Mr. Miller, his track record suggests that he favors assaults on profit-making businesses whether or not his friends are lobbying him. It's also true that Mr. Reusing has been very friendly to more than one left-leaning politician over the years. According to OpenSecrets.org, Mr. Reusing has contributed more than $80,000 to various Democratic campaigns, including Mr. Miller's.

The nonprofit companies set to benefit from this reconciliation earmark clearly enjoy broad support in the Democratic caucus. And you thought Democrats didn't like business.

Armando Ramos Wrote:However, when you consider the whole thing smells like the Chicago River, it's just a matter of time before somebody lawyers up.

Quote:“There’s going to be a big free-for-all lawsuit about this,” Michael Bird, legislative counsel for the NCSL told Reuters news service last week.

Winston Smith Wrote:...the Obamatrons of academia...

Quote:Thursday, 25 Mar 2010 08:42 AM

...A Harris Poll released Wednesday found that 40 percent of Americans say Mr. Obama is a socialist, a third think he's a Muslim, a quarter think he was not even born in the U.S., is not eligible to be president and is a "domestic enemy that the U.S. Constitution speaks of."

...Among other things, the poll also found that three-out-of-10 Americans think Mr. Obama "wants to turn over the sovereignty of the U.S. to a one-world government." About an equal number - 29 percent - said he had "done many things that are unconstitutional" while 27 percent said "he resents America's heritage."

Between 20 percent and 23 percent said Mr. Obama is "a racist," "anti-American" and "is doing many of the things that Hitler did." Fourteen percent went so far as to agree that Mr. Obama "may be the anti-Christ" while 13 percent said "he wants the terrorists to win."

Quote:Va. judge dismisses challenge to Obama health care
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed Liberty University's lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's new federal health care law, declaring that a provision requiring most individuals to obtain insurance is constitutional.

Originally published Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 8:21 PM

By LARRY O'DELL
Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. —
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed Liberty University's lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's new federal health care law, declaring that a provision requiring most individuals to obtain insurance is constitutional.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon in Lynchburg is the second court decision upholding the law, following one in Michigan in October. University law school dean Mathew Staver said in a telephone interview that he will promptly appeal the ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.

Attorneys general from several states have filed another lawsuit in Florida, and a separate challenge by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli is pending in federal court in Richmond.

Both sides expect the issue to ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"In the weeks ahead, there will be additional court cases examining this matter and the health reform law," Stephanie Cutter, assistant to the president for special projects, wrote in a White House blog post. "We can't predict the outcome of each case, but we are confident that we will ultimately prevail in court and continue to deliver the benefits of reform to the American people."

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson has said he expects to rule in Cuccinelli's lawsuit by the end of the year.

Liberty claimed in its suit that the requirement that individuals buy health insurance or pay a penalty is not a proper exercise of congressional authority under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. The university argued that a decision not to buy insurance is not economic activity that can be regulated by Congress.

Moon disagreed, writing in his 53-page opinion that "there is a rational basis for Congress to conclude that individuals' decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities that in the aggregate substantially affect the interstate health care market."

Staver said he was not discouraged.

"The court's ruling on the Commerce Clause, while wrong, puts us on the fast track to the federal court of appeals," he said.

The conservative Christian university founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell also claimed the law violates its religious rights by forcing it to subsidize coverage for abortions, but again the judge disagreed.

Quote:Reagan Strikes Back: Judge Rules All ObamaCare Unconstitutional
Posted on January 31, 2011 by Ben Johnson



President Obama’s health care takeover just fought the U.S. Constitution, and the Constitution won.

Earlier today, Judge Roger Vinson of the district court in Pensacola, Florida, issued a 78-page decision striking down all of the president’s heath insurance “reform” as unconstitutional. Vinson ruled the individual mandate, which requires all Americans to purchase health insurance, violated the Commerce Clause. He found that mandate cannot be separated from the rest of the bill, so the entire bill is unconstitutional:

Quote:I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate…Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void.

Vinson, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, made clear his opposition to the bill came from its gross violation of the Constitution. Vinson wrote, “If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain.” He concluded, “Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution.”

This lawsuit was filed by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a former Republican Congressman, and ultimately joined by 26 states.

Today’s ruling raises several significant points. Vinson’s decision comes just a month after District Judge Henry E. Hudson of Virginia ruled the individual mandate provision is unconstitutional. Although Hudson found that requiring citizens to buy health insurance or face a fine “exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power” in December, his ruling applied only to that provision. That repeal fight, led by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, hoped to see all of ObamaCare ruled illegitimate. Today’s ruling grants their wish. Either or both rulings will inevitably be decided by the Supreme Court, but the process could take years.

Which raises the second point: Elections have consequences. Judge Vinson was appointed by Ronald Reagan. Although Republicans have appointed their share of poor judges over history (do the names Earl Warren or John Paul Stevens ring a bell?), the most radical judges at all levels of the judiciary have received their patronage courtesy of the Democratic Party. In 2008, the American people elected a president who stated the Constitution “represented the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.” Twenty-eight years earlier, they elected a president with a clear history of supporting constitutional boundaries for government. Ronald Reagan’s believed America represents a “shining city on a hill,” while Barack Obama continually expounds upon “our tragic history.” The views of a president, however charismatic of likable he appears on manipulated media, will continue to affect every level of our government even after they pass away. America can be happy the man who appointed Judge Vinson loved the Founders, their system of government, and the concept of liberty. Reagan’s most famous speech on the subject of socialized medicine leads me to believe the Gipper is up there smiling at today’s ruling.

The last and most important factor raised by today’s ruling is one that has been apparent for months, but must be confirmed again and again: The American people have rediscovered the Constitution, and the entire Republican Party had better follow suit. Contrary to what hacks on both sides of the aisle say, the Tea Party movement did not begin inside the Republican Party or as a reaction to Barack Obama. The origins of the Tea Party go back ideologically for decades, and proximately they go back to the days of George W. Bush. For his admirable personal and presidential attributes, his free-spending fiscal record alarmed a growing segment of the country, resulting in the loss of Congress in 2006 and the presidency two years later. Obama’s pell mell rush toward debt crisis and insistence on foisting socialized medicine on a country that did not want it burst the dam of public disapproval at the elites’ irresponsibility. The Tea Party was born — and it scared both parties silly. As Floyd Brown has written, “Underneath all the bluster, we live in a single party country where the Republicans and Democrats are just different factions of a big-government loving elite feasting on the plunder of an enormous bureaucracy. The reason both Republicans and Democrats fear the Tea Party movement is because its members aren’t from the club.”

The Tea Party began as an ad hoc opposition to bailouts, takeovers, and debt slavery. But it has evolved into a shrewd and powerful political vehicle — as Michele Bachmann put it, “a dynamic force for good” — all its own. With numerical growth has come intellectual depth, with its members increasingly pledging their allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and its expressed limits on federal power.

We know who is to blame for our plight: we are. We elected or tolerated political leaders in both parties who ratcheted up the spending, tightened the shackles of government dependence, exported jobs, imported cheap labor, and bought off the rest of us with pleasant-sounding entitlement programs. Our overindulgence bought us our current plight.

Our president may not understand it, but the Pilgrims who came to this country did so for religious reasons; they believed they were establishing a government that would best reflect Christian morality. Their descendants crafted a Constitution that secured the maximum amount of liberty for them and their posterity.

Once again today, Americans see themselves in a moment comparable to the Israelites of yore. In the Old Testament, during the days of King Josiah, the people had forsaken their heritage and invented better, more “modern” ways of living. Then the high priest Hilkiah found the Bible inside the Temple — unused and forgotten for a generation. The Bible says, “Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes” (II Kings 22:11). The American people have awakened from their long national flirtation with Fabian socialism, rediscovered the founding text of this nation, and committed themselves to seeing that their elected leaders follow it again.

That decision is a healthy corrective — and a declaration of revolution.

Quote:ObamaCare Headed Back To Supreme Court
October 8, 2012 By Doug Book

On the day Barack Obama signed ObamaCare bill into law, Matthew Staver, the founder and dean of the Liberty University School of Law filed one of the first private lawsuits against the new Act, claiming ObamaCare mandated the forced, direct funding of abortion, a clearly unconstitutional violation of the free exercise of religion.

Though the University’s lawsuit has been held up by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals which argued that the Anti-Injunction Act prevented the court hearing the merits of the case, that barrier was torn down by the June Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare. As a result, Liberty immediately renewed its petition that the Supreme Court review its case.

And on Monday, the first day of the new term, the Supreme Court ordered the Department of Justice to respond to Liberty University’s suit. That means the Justices are taking very seriously the Liberty charge that both individuals and employers are being forced to directly fund abortion, a clear infringement upon the freedom of religious expression.

For two years the Obama Regime has claimed that no taxpayer funding of abortion is included in the ObamaCare law. That is a lie. For “…nestled within the ‘individual mandate’ in the Act—that portion of the Act requiring every American to purchase government-approved insurance or pay a penalty—is an ‘abortion premium mandate’. ”

As Staver puts it, ObamaCare, via extraordinarily secretive rules issued on March 15th, 2012 by Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius, “funds [abortion] in two ways.”

“First [of] all, for the individual, for the first time in history, it requires each individual to pay a particular fee and that goes directly into an abortion fund and that fund funds abortion. This fee doesn’t go into a general fund, some of which funds other surgeries or medical treatment, some of which might fund abortion. No, this goes into a specific fund that funds abortion. (It’s the) very first time in history you can trace the dollar to the actual abortion.”

In addition, employers–even those associated with religious institutions—will also be forced by federal law to fund abortions.

And incredibly, many who sign up for plans which charge for and provide abortion coverage may never even know it! For, “if a health plan covers abortion, [HHS rules] forbid the plan from calling attention to that fact in any of its advertising or explanatory materials.” As National Right to Life puts it, “this provision seems designed for no other purpose than to ensure that many people who would not deliberately sign up for abortion-covering plans will do so inadvertently, because of the federally enforced gag rule.”

In deciding which cases will be heard by the Supreme Court, the “Rule of Four” applies. That is, if four justices agree a case should be heard, a writ of certiorari will be issued to the petitioner and the case will be placed on the court’s docket. Needless to say there are currently four justices who were both shocked and outraged that Chief Justice John Roberts authored his contrived “pass” for the clearly unconstitutional ObamaCare law during its first appearance before the Court. It would not be surprising that these four justices should call ObamaCare back before the Court during the new term. The Court’s demand that the DOJ respond to Liberty’s accusations is a vitally important first step.

The Liberty University lawsuit is one of many contesting the grotesque assault on individual liberty known as ObamaCare. Perhaps it will be the one which gives John Roberts the opportunity to rescue his reputation and redeem career.

Quote:Supreme Court orders new look at Liberty University's health care challenge
Published November 26, 2012

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider Liberty University’s legal argument that President Obama's health care law violates the school’s religious freedom.

The case will be returned to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

“Today’s ruling breathes new life into our challenge to ObamaCare,” Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which filed the suit on behalf of the school, said Monday. “Our fight against ObamaCare is far from over.”

A federal judge in 2010 rejected Liberty’s claim, and the appeals court later ruled the lawsuit was premature and failed to address the substance of the school's arguments.

The Supreme Court upheld the health care law in June 2012.

In the high court’s 5-4 decision, the justices used lawsuits filed by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business to uphold the health care law, then rejected all other pending appeals, including Liberty's.

The school is challenging the constitutionality of the part of the law that mandates employers provide insurance and whether forcing insurers to pay for birth control is unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause.

The appeals court ruled last year the Anti-Injunction Act barred it from addressing the merits in the case. The act blocks any challenge to a "tax" before a taxpayer pays it -- in this case referring to the penalties associated with failing to obtain health insurance.

However, the Supreme Court’s ruling stated the act did not serve as a barrier to lawsuits challenging the health care law. On that basis, Liberty University immediately petitioned the court to allow it to renew its original case.

Quote:High court ends Liberty University lawsuit over ObamaCare
Published December 02, 2013

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a challenge to ObamaCare brought by a Virginia-based Christian university, ending for now one of the biggest remaining legal fights against the health care law.

The justices, in turning away the lawsuit from Liberty University and leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling dismissing it, did not comment on their decision. The decision comes less than a week after the high court agreed to hear a separate challenge from Hobby Lobby and one other company to the law's so-called contraception mandate -- the requirement on most employers to provide access to contraceptive coverage.

But Liberty University's case was more expansive. The university had mounted a major challenge to the law, going after the contraception mandate but also the requirement on employers to provide coverage.

Liberty made several arguments in challenging the portion of the health care law that requires most employers to provide health insurance to their workers or pay a fine. The 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in Richmond, Va., rejected those claims.

With the high court's decision, that ruling remains in place.

The Supreme Court's decision comes more than a year after it had ordered the federal appeals court to reconsider Liberty University's claims that the law violates the school's religious freedoms.

The courts are continuing to wade through numerous challenges to the Affordable Care Act, despite the major ruling in June 2012 that upheld the bulk of the law by ruling the individual mandate -- the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance -- valid.

But the issue of the contraception mandate will come before the Supreme Court, perhaps as early as March. The court last week said it would hear the challenge from Hobby Lobby and Pennsylvania company Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp.

The court is set to weigh in on the dispute over whether businesses can use religious objections to avoid a requirement in the law to cover birth control for employees.