GOP Congressman Says Supreme Court Doesn’t Actually Get To Decide Whether Laws Are Constitutional

Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK)

Still smarting over last year’s ruling upholding Obamacare, freshman Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) dismissed the idea that the Supreme Court decides whether or not laws are constitutional.

“Just because the Supreme Court rules on something doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s constitutional,” Bridenstine said in a Daily Caller interview posted Sunday. After accusing Democrats of “stacking the courts in their favor” — five of the current nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents — Bridenstine dismissed the idea that Congress must write laws within the boundaries set by the Supreme Court. “That’s not the case,” the Oklahoma congressman said.

The interviewer, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas, didn’t have the heart to correct Bridenstine’s peculiar view of the Court’s role.

BRIDENSTINE: Just because the Supreme Court rules on something doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s constitutional. What that means is that that’s what they decided on that particular day given the makeup of the Court on that particular day. And the left in this country has done an extraordinary job of stacking the courts in their favor. So what we have to do as a body of Congress is say, “look, just because the courts” – and I hear this all the time from Republicans – they say that the court is the arbitrator and after the arbitration is done, that’s the rules we have to live under and we can go forth and make legislation given those rules. That’s not the case. A perfect example if Obamacare. Obamacare is not constitutional, the individual mandate.

Watch it:

There is certainly good reason to doubt the way this Supreme Court reads the Constitution — Citizens United alone proves that point. Our current court gave sweeping legal immunity to wealthy corporations. It took away Lilly Ledbetter’s right to equal pay for equal work. It shrinks reproductive freedom because women may “come to regret” the choices they make if they have control of their own bodies. And it appears poised to strike down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

But the idea that this particular Court distorted the Constitution to uphold Obamacare does not even pass the smell test. In the words of Judge Laurence Silberman, a leading conservative who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, the case against the Affordable Care Act has no basis “in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent.”

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Colorado Lawmaker: Women Can’t Tell Whether They’re About To Be Raped, May Shoot The Wrong Person

State Rep. Joe Salazar (D-CO)

In a debate over whether to prevent college students from carrying concealed weapons on campus on Friday, Colorado Rep. Joe Salazar (D) suggested that female students are too paranoid to responsibly use a firearm. According to the state lawmaker, women may not be able to tell whether or not they’re actually in danger and end up pulling the trigger on an innocent person:

SALAZAR: It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.

Gun advocates often attempt to frame concealed carry permits as a women’s issue, claiming that women need the added protection of a firearm to fight back against attempted incidents of sexual assault. Domestic violence counselors vehemently oppose the policy, pointing out that hidden guns on campus won’t actually help address rape culture, particularly since an estimated two-thirds of sexual assaults occur between people who already know each other. But suggesting that women are too emotional to be able to identify sexual violence — and implying that paranoid women may sometimes “feel like” they’re in trouble when they “may actually not be” — doesn’t help address pervasive issues of rape culture, either.

Salazar apologized for his remarks today. “I’m sorry if I offended anyone,” his statement read. “That was not my intention. We were having a public policy debate on whether or not guns makes people safer on campus. I don’t believe they do. That was the point I was trying to make.”

Insensitive comments about rape certainly know no party lines. But concrete policies to address issues of sexual assault have unfortunately become more partisan in recent months. The federal Violence Against Women Act, which has strengthened systems to help survivors of sexual violence for the past 18 years — and which specifically impacts college students, since it helps fund campus programs to address dating violence — has been locked in a political battle in Congress ever since GOP lawmakers balked at adding expanding protections for diverse communities. Republicans in Congress actually let it expire for the first time ever during the last legislative session.

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11 GOP Governors Still Need To Decide Whether Or Not To Deny Health Care To Low-Income Americans

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) announced on Wednesday that he will turn down Obamacare’s optional expansion of the Medicaid program, which makes him the thirteenth Republican leader to refuse to extend public health insurance to additional low-income Americans. Six GOP governors — in Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio and Nevada — have expressed support for expanding Medicaid, and the rest still need to decide what they want to do about that particular provision of the health reform law.

And even though most GOP leaders claim that expanding Medicaid would be too costly, they’re actually being lobbied by hospital companies, economists, and health care experts who all say the financial benefits — since the federal government will fully fund the first several years of expansion — are too good to turn down:

“It’s fascinating, because on the political level, it’s a classic clash between money and politics,” said Dan Mendelson, CEO of Avalere health advisory company. He said he and his 170 advisers working with the health care industry are hearing plenty about expansion.

“It sets up a really difficult tension between the Republican governors and the hospitals, but there’s an increasing level of political cover being given to the governors to expand their programs,” Mendelson said. [...]

In Florida, a recent poll found that 60% of residents would like to see Medicaid expanded, Mendelson said. Several economic studies have found the states may benefit both by federal funds going into local economies, as well as taxes from those sales going back into the coffers of local government.

The significant federal funds allocated to states that choose to expand Medicaid led the hospital industry to wonder if governors were bluffing about rejecting the expansion. That quickly proved not to be the case, as stubborn GOP politicians in some of the states with the highest rates of uninsurance in the nation still refused to cooperate with the health care reform law.

Diverse coalitions across the country have partnered to pressure resistant lawmakers to expand their Medicaid programs. The growing list of GOP governors who have accepted the optional expansion over the past few weeks seemed to signal that political deadlock may soon give way to reality, but the remaining Republican leaders may buck that trend when they eventually announce their own decisions.

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Clinton Scolds GOP Senator For Focusing On Whether Protest Sparked Benghazi Attack

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shot back at a Republican senator during today’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Benghazi terror attacks, arguing that the Republicans’ focus on whether there was a protest against in anti-Muslim video at the time of the attack is irrelevant.

Much of the politicization surrounding the Benghazi affair centered on Republicans attacking the Obama administration’s initial assessment that the Benghazi attacks may have been sparked by the video protest, a determination that the administration later backed away from.

When Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) asked Clinton why she didn’t make “a simple phone call” to the evacuees to find out, the Secretary of State shot back: “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans!” she said, “What difference does it make?”:

JOHNSON: Madam Secretary, do you disagree that a simple phone call to those evacuees to determined what happened would have ascertained immediately there was no protest? That was a piece of information that could have been easily, easily obtained. within hours if not days.

CLINTON: Senator, you know, when you’re in these positions, the last thing you want to do is interfere with any other process.

JOHNSON: I realize that. I realize it’s a good excuse.

CLINTON: No it’s a fact. [...]

JOHNSON: Again, we were mislead there was supposedly protests and something spraying out of that, assault spraying out of that. That was easily ascertained that was not the fact and the american people could have known that within days and didn’t know that.

CLINTON: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans! Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans?! What difference at this point does it make?! It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again,

Watch the clip:

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Whether It’s Deb Fischer or Don Stenberg, It’s About Jon Bruning

I like Don Stenberg. He’s a friend. He’s been a great leader in Nebraska. I’d like to see him in the Senate. But over the past month, as Stenberg and Bruning have gone nuclear with each other, Deb Fischer has run up the middle and may very well win the Nebraska Primary today.

I’d gladly support her.

It seems that in the withering back and forth fight with Bruning, Stenberg has lost momentum. Sarah Palin came in and endorsed Deb Fischer. Several anti-earmark groups joined in. And she is in a prime position today to win.

The Nebraska race has always been about beating Jon Bruning. He got rich in office, has a volatile temper, and sure evolved into a conservative quickly when he wanted his next office. If it can’t be Stenberg, I hope it will be Fischer.

I don’t think Fischer will be as conservative as Stenberg, but given the pedigree of Nebraska Senators, she’ll be far better than either a Chuck Hagel or a Jon Brunning. And Fischer, unlike Bruning, would never, ever support Eric Holder.

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