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The Supreme Court's 3-6 decision refusing to review a lower court ruling means that funding of Planned Parenthood's baby-killing business will continue in Kansan and Alabama (and likely everywhere else for that matter). The case is about the rights of Medicaid patients to choose their health care providers, but also impacts the states' right to choose who those providers are.
Except for Neil Gorsuch, the most recent picks to the Supreme Court (John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh) appear to be reincarnations of Sandra Day O'Connor and shameful Catholic Anthony Kennedy who did so much damage during his 30 years on the court.
And it looks like we are in for more of same from Catholics John Roberts and Brett Kavanagh who appear to care more for human respect than the people of this country including babies waiting to be born.
Really! Is Planned Parenthood such a sacred cow that any case that may impact its multi-million dollar baby-killing business has to be nipped in the bud? Is Kavanaugh so bruised and battered from his confirmation hearing that he is now caving to the feminist bullies in their pink pussy hats?
Clarence Thomas wrote what's been described as a "blistering" dissenting opinion with Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch joining. You can read the full opinion here. I copied and pasted some pertinent passages below:
One of this Court’s primary functions is to resolve “important matter[s]” on which the courts of appeals are “in conflict.” ....[and] whether Medicaid recipients have a private right of action to challenge a State’s determination of “qualified” Medicaid providers.... Five Circuits have held that Medicaid recipients have such a right, and one Circuit has held that they do not.* The last three Circuits to consider the question have themselves been divided.
This question is important and recurring. Around 70 million Americans are on Medicaid, and the question presented directly affects their rights. If the majority of the courts of appeals are correct, then Medicaid patients could sue when, for example, a State removes their doctor as a Medicaid provider or inadequately reimburses their provider....
Because of this Court’s inaction, patients in different States—even patients with the same providers—have different rights to challenge their State’s provider decisions. The question presented also affects the rights of the States, many of which are amici requesting our guidance. Under the current majority rule, a State faces the threat of a federal lawsuit—and its attendant costs and fees— whenever it changes providers of medical products or services for its Medicaid recipients.....
So what explains the Court’s refusal to do its job here? I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named “Planned Parenthood.” That makes the Court’s decision particularly troubling, as the question presented has nothing to do with abortion. It is true that these particular cases arose after several States alleged that Planned Parenthood affiliates had, among other things, engaged in “the illegal sale of fetal organs” and “fraudulent billing practices,” and thus removed Planned Parenthood as a state Medicaid provider....
But the cases DID impact abortion funding and that gets too close to Planned Parenthood's murder incorporated monolith for comfort. The original Roe v. Wade decision was brought to us by Catholic William Brennan (the force behind Harry Blackmun). Brennan considered the Constitution a "living document" and created out of thin air the "right to privacy" on which Roe was based. He also gets major credit for coaching Blackmun on the decision.But these cases are not about abortion rights. They are about private rights of action under the Medicaid Act. Resolving the question presented here would not even affect Planned Parenthood’s ability to challenge the States’ decisions; it concerns only the rights of individual Medicaid patients to bring their own suits.
Thumbs up for Clarence Thomas!
Judas Catholics on the courts (and in legislatures and other places of power) are nothing new. We need to pray for them, because they will face a court one day where they will have NO APPEAL. May God have mercy on them! And pray for Clarence Thomas who has been a stalwart on the court! I'm having a Mass said for him and I'm also sending him a letter of thanks. May God give him a long life witnessing to the truth to his fellow Catholics on the court.
If you want to read more, check out these articles:
Brett Kavanaugh's Chickens Come Home to Roost
High Court Won't Hear State's Appeal
Supreme Court Declines Cases
This is a rather inane article. The mere fact that PP was a party is no more reason to take the case, and no reason to throw a hissy fit about Roberts and Kavanaugh, than if it had been a case involving PP violating the traffic laws.
ReplyDeleteThe simplest (and most rational) way of viewing the denial of cert here is that the Court thought that a case involving a state's exclusion of a particular provider from Medicaid participation is probably not the best vehicle for testing whether a statute providing that individual recipients have the right of free choice from among participating providers confers a right to sue in federal court.
Well, I'm no lawyer and I see from your profile that you are involved in some way in law. But Clarence Thomas IS a lawyer and a judge and he clearly does not agree with you. He was concerned enough to write a seriously critical dissent and say the court was shirking its responsibility. I'll stand with Thomas any day.
ReplyDeleteWhen Kavanaugh was nominated, a Washington Post story described Blessed Sacrament, his Chevy Chase parish:
ReplyDeleteA parish where prominent pro-abortion Democrats serve as ushers and lectors, and, of course, receive Communion.
A parish where the priests talk softly and very little about abortion, and pound away on immigration.
In other words, just the sort of parish that McCarrick and Wuerl encouraged over their 18-year reign of terror.
95% of Thomas' dissent was indeed "serious" in that it focused on actual legal issues -- ie, there is a circuit split regarding the rather mundane issue of whether section 1902(a)(23) of the Social Security Act can be enforced by private parties. (For the record, he is probably also right that the lower court decision on that question was wrong, and I suspect that eventually that general holding will be reversed in a case that actually presents an appropriate vehicle for doing so.) At the end, he threw in a single, rampantly speculative, (ie, not particularly "serious") paragraph regarding whether they didn't take the case because PP was involved. But here's the thing -- the implication of your post and many similar posts of others is that they SHOULD have taken the case BECAUSE PP was involved. Ironically, that is precisely the opposite of the point that Justice Thomas was making.
ReplyDeleteI admit I am no fan of Opus Dei but not because I am leaning Left as does this site I link with this info .That said in full disclosure, perhaps Catholics have been disappointed with the lack luster conservatives we thought were staunchly pro life because they come from a list handpicked by Opus Dei?
ReplyDelete“Leonard Leo can take credit for installing four Supreme Court justices”- John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. “As executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leo has been the quiet architect of a pivotal shift to the right throughout the federal judiciary” including “dozens of lower court federal judges across the country.”"It was Leo who prepared Trump’s “list of judges and the people that he’s put on the bench.”
Leo is on the board of directors of Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center located at 15th and K Street, two blocks from the White House. The Center is “a rallying point for ultra-conservative Catholics eager for a voice in the secular halls of government power” and “advances a hard-right political agenda,” according to Church and State, Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s magazine."
https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/opus-deis-influence-on-the-u-s-judiciary/