With the vast increase in Federal spending mandated by ObamaCare, and the recent credit downgrade on US credit by Standard and Poor’s, the fate of ObamaCare now clearly rests in the hands of a closely-divided US Supreme Court, but will become one of the key, signature issues of the 2012 election cycle.

Many analysts, some of whom live in Branson Lake homes, suggest that simply striking down ObamaCare and its oppressive increase in all future Federal spending, could be enough to regain the US’s triple-A credit rating. The stakes for the 2012 presidential election cycle have rarely been this critical.

The state’s Supreme Court recently decided that detecting “the smell of burning marijuana” was “not enough for police to suspect a person of criminal activity and order them out of a car.”

Say what? Maybe even the presence of plant stands in the back seat wouldn’t be enough, at that rate.

Massachusetts State Supreme Court Chief Justice wrote, “We conclude that, to order a passenger in a stopped vehicle to exit based merely on suspicion of an offense, that offense must be criminal.”

The ruling was a shocking 5-1 majority.

Someone send the sole dissenter a gift basket, quick!

That’s the question so-called “birthers” have been asking for a couple years now, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petitioned hearing on the matter without comment back in January, but now has announced it will grant a conference on the issue in early March. It’ll be a case of delicate material handling.

If Obama were deemed not to be a U.S. citizen, he would ultimately be forced to vacate his White House seat, ceding the presidency to Joe Biden, his vice president.

It is possible that Justices Elana Kagen and Sonia Sotomayor would be forced to recuse themselves from the hearing, given that they were appointed by Obama and the case would represent a conflict of interest. That situation would also put so-called judicial conservatives in an overwhelming majority situation, outnumbering liberal appointees either 5-2 or, at worst, 4-3. Either way, the case will finally be heard and lay to rest, hopefully, all doubts about Obama’s eligibility to run.

My take? Obama’s a train wreck; Biden would be worse. Keep them where they are and let the voters kick them out in 2012. Or not. We get what we vote for, America.

One doesn’t need a laptop computer to detect the flaws in ObamaCare; the judge ruled that by making the purchase of health insurance mandatory and a fine-able offense, ObamaCare stepped beyond Constitutional restrictions on federal authority.

That big giant gasp followed by a confused, “What’s that?” you just heard is the sound of liberals everywhere, astonished that America is still ruled by that “dusty old relic.” Most thought the Constitution had been completely overturned during the Clinton Administration.

Surprise! It’s still here, people!

Let’s face it; Obama won the White House and with that comes the privilege of nominating people he feels might be like-minded to the Supreme Court when there’s a vacancy. Even if the allegations are true, as an alleged lesbian, I sincerely doubt there would be much difference between the way she, or any other potential Obama appointee, would rule on cases.

So, for me, her sexual orientation is a bit boring and a distraction from any real, genuine, meritorious objections to her nomination. Are there any?

You bet.

The main one, and what I think makes her not the best choice for confirmation, is just her general lack of experience in a judicial role.

Otherwise, her resume’s an impressive one. Dean of the Harvard School of Law. Assistant Solicitor General arguing the Obama administration’s position before the Supremes. She’s a woman of accomplishment. But ready to ascend to the bench of the highest court in the land?

Not yet.

Kagan is the sort of nominee that would be better-suited to starting out on an appellate court level, gaining judicial experience, learning the difference between being a legal advocate and being a fair and even-handed judge. Such a move would be kinder to Kagan, and of greater service to the Supreme Court.

Many media reports stuffily point out that many Supreme Court justices have come from non-judicial backgrounds. This is true, though no current Justice comes from a non-judicial background. And what the media fails to point out is the rather thin record of any of those Justices from non-judicial backgrounds going on to stellar, legally and Constitutionally-sound careers on the court.

The last non-Judicial Supreme Court nominee was Harriet Miers, a one-time White House legal counsel to then-President George W. Bush. Miers withdrew herself from consideration because of the uproar caused by her lack of Judicial experience.

That is the parallel I see in the Kagan nomination; she is Barack Obama’s Harriet Miers. And on the same basis of lack of judicial experience, Kagan should follow in Miers’ footsteps and withdraw her name from consideration. If she wishes the ascend to the bench, her accomplishments are certainly sufficient to merit a lower-court seat. Give her some time there, and I’m certain that if there’s any truth to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s alleged pancreatic cancer diagnosis, President Obama will have a chance to appoint at least one more member to the highest court in the land during his first term. Hopefully not soon, for Justice Ginsberg’s sake… but it’s an eventuality.

Why rush Kagan to the top? With her resume, even a brief lower-court career would certainly help her fill out the holes in her otherwise-impressive resume for a seat with the Supremes.

The Procerin-induced arguments before the court are a bit hysterical on both sides, but it boils down to this: the court is essentially going to wind up saying, “Uh, yeah, looks like the Second Amendment actually IS part of the U.S. Constitution and it means what it says on the face of it.”

Such mastery of the obvious would be insulting if liberals hadn’t spent so many years trying to lawyer-talk the Second Amendment into “a bad, outdated idea.”

For an encore, it is rumored that Chief Justice John Roberts will issue an opinion that, “The Ten Commandments are in no way, shape or form ever referred to as The Ten Suggestions.”

‘Nuff said?

This decision comes in the wake of a Texas raid on a polygamist sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (“Fundamentalist Mormons” or “FLDS” from here on out). The ruling by the appeals court could force the state Child Protective Services to return the children to their parents, though that could be forestalled if the state decides to press the decision to the level of the Texas Supreme Court.

Although most kids worry about things like the school dance and acne treatment, Texas Child Protective Services claimed sexual abuse charges, using them to justify taking away all the kids from the FLDS, even those who were among traditional two-parent families.

“Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse … there is no evidence that this danger is ‘immediate’ or ‘urgent’,” the court said. “Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal.”

Kinda brings Waco to mind, doesn’t it? Don’t expect Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) to be running for the White House any time soon, after this embarrassment.

This week, just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the US Supreme Court agreed to review a Second Amendment case. At issue are the District of Columbia’s anti-gun ownership laws, the strictest in the nation. Yet it puts the highest court in the land at the center of judging the constitutionality of the U.S. Constitution itself, if gun opponents have their way.

Now, thanks to Bush appointees, most suspect that at worst, the Second Amendment will be protected by a 5-4 vote, but don’t be so sure just yet. Keep in mind that the Roberts court is the same one that decided to damage personal property rights and trivialize the real meaning of eminent domain a couple years ago, in essence ruling that private homes could be condemned to make way for shopping malls and parking lots, even in times of peace. In other words, the Roberts court has gotten in wrong before.

As I’ve often said, I don’t own a gun; but I value the freedom of knowing that I have the option. Gun ownership is an individual right because the key phrase is, “the right of the people.” It’s only used a handful of times and in every other instance, whatever rights are enumerated thereafter have been deemed individual, not collective, rights.

Watch out if the high court decided otherwise because if the Supremes can, by fiat, make the Second Amendment null and void, anyone who values freedoms like speech, religion and assembly, to name a few, better beware, because those could be overtuned next!

In perhaps one of the most paradoxical questions before the Supreme Court in a long time, by Tuesday the highest judicial body in the nation will decide whether to review a case that is basically being referred to as “Levy vs. the District of Columbia.” Produced and brought forward by libertarian Cato Institute senior fellow Robert Levy, the case seeks to test the constitutionality of the anti-firearm regulations in force in the District of Columbia, the nation’s strictest anti-handgun laws.

Last March, the US Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Second Amendment, which states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” While gun ownership groups argue that the important modifier there is the right of the “people” – which would classify gun ownership as an individual right, is the cornerstone phrase, gun ownership opponents argue that the key phrases are “A well regulated Militia” and “the security of a free State,” which could be argued toward in interpretation that diminishes the individual gun ownership right, but merely allows for gun ownership in connection with some form of military or state service.

WonderfulPessimist.com is of the intellectual opinion that only oligarchies, dictatorships and other forms of tyrannical government seek to deny the common folk gun ownership, because they fear uprisings and rebellions against their rule. Just and moral governments never need to fear that and therefore allow private ownership of guns, whether it be for hunting, home protection or defending oneself against tyranny. WonderfulPessimist.com also recommends the 1980s movie Red Dawn as required viewing before entering into any discussion on this issue.

That being said, I’ve never really owned a gun. And other than the antique World War II German Luger my father acquired while serving in Germany, which I would like to keep as a remembrance of him and pass down to my kids when the time comes (once I have kids), I have no personal interest in owning a gun.

But I tell you what: I feel a lot safer living in a country where I know I could own one if I chose to, than I’d feel living in a country where I couldn’t, no matter how much it might be needed. After all, what the jet-set liberals who want to pretend the Second Amendment doesn’t exist don’t realize is that life is not always condo hotels and caviar: some folks do live in dangerous areas, and cops are a reactive, not a proactive, force. If I lived in an area where I knew a rapist was at large, for example, I wouldn’t want to be without any way to protect my wife if the fellow tried breaking in to our apartment.

Then again, I’m not exactly planning on going out and buying one any time in the foreseeable future, either. But at least I have the choice. The best thing the Supreme Court could do is to pass on this case and, by so doing, uphold the lower court decision that the DC anti-gun laws are too broad and therefore unconstitutional. While anti-gun advocates would see this as a defeat, it doesn’t give pro-gun forces all they want, either. Sounds like a decent balance.