By Matt Barber
“But Republican governors are folding like cheap lawn chairs,” you say. “And political eunuchs in the GOP establishment are bowing to Obama like he bows to foreign dictators. Any hope of repeal is long dead, and besides, Chief Justice John Roberts put the final nail in the judicial coffin last summer, didn’t he? Any chance of killing the Obamacare zombie is gone, right?”
Wrong.
Not surprisingly, the mainstream media paid it little attention; but back in November, the U.S. Supreme Court shocked many in the legal community by granting Liberty Counsel’s motion for a rehearing on its multi-pronged challenge to Obamacare. The high court ordered the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear arguments. This is extremely rare and means, almost certainly, that Chief Justice Roberts will get another bite at the rotten apple – this time, with a whole new quiver of legal arrows.
Following the Supreme Court’s directive, Liberty Counsel recently filed its brief in the case of Liberty University v. Geithner. The Christian civil rights firm represents Liberty University and two private individuals in this case. While there are other legal challenges to the employer contraceptive/abortifacient mandate, Liberty Counsel’s is the most comprehensive case pending in the country.
The lawsuit challenges 1) the employer mandate for all employers; 2) the abortion mandate for religious employers; 3) the abortion mandate for individuals; and 4) the entire law because tax bills must originate in the House (and Obamacare originated in the Senate.)
This case is the only one in the country that challenges the entire employer mandate for all employers. Like other pending cases, Liberty Counsel’s also challenges the so-called “Preventative coverage” mandate, which requires employers to provide free contraceptives, sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and IUDs, which also causes abortion.
Additionally, Obamacare compels individual citizens to violate their conscience by making them directly fund abortion homicide – both surgical and chemical – under penalty of law. It forces all employees who are part of a plan that offers abortion coverage to pay $1 per month directly to a “free” abortion fund. There is no opt-out provision, and information relative to which plans offer abortion is intentionally covered up. This too is part of the case, so don’t let anyone tell you that Obamacare doesn’t require you to fund abortion on demand. If they do, they’re simply lying through their triple-grande,-four-pump-hazelnut-mocha-stained teeth.
Finally, Liberty Counsel’s brief argues that Obamacare is invalid because, since it’s a tax – as the Supreme Court already ruled in June – it violates the Constitution’s Origination Clause. To pass constitutional muster, tax bills must originate in the House, not the Senate.
Before the Democrat-led Senate rammed it through in the dead of night on Christmas Eve 2009, Senate majority leader Harry Reid used a House bill unrelated to Obamacare, struck all the language and the title so that only the former HR number remained, and then inserted a new title and over 2,000 pages of job-killing, economy-crushing, health-care-rationing compost.
Sneaky? Yes. Typical? No doubt. Unconstitutional? Absolutely. It’s like dropping a Ford Pinto engine into …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism
