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title: "(See my previous link to @[114501626:2048:Avens O'Brien]'s post for…"
date: 2018-10-06
source: facebook
type: Archer T. Ships shared a link.
---

# (See my previous link to @[114501626:2048:Avens O'Brien]'s post for…

*October 6, 2018 · Facebook*

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[https://thefederalist.com/2018/07/03/brett-kavanaugh-said-obamacare-unprecedented-unlawful/](https://thefederalist.com/2018/07/03/brett-kavanaugh-said-obamacare-unprecedented-unlawful/){target="_blank"}
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(See my previous link to @\[114501626:2048:Avens O\'Brien\]\'s post for many of my thoughts on the Kavanaugh confirmation. Here\'s some additions I would make to her words.)\
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\* Like Avens I\'m also not happy about Kavanaugh\'s squishiness on 4th Amendment protections, abortion rights, and his general deference to executive power.\
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However, those aren\'t the only topics on which he will rule.\
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\* In general, he\'s pushed back against Federal agencies that have tried to expand their power beyond their constitutional mandate. He\'s opposed to so-called Net Neutrality regulations on First Amendment grounds. He takes a dim view of an expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause upon which a whole host of Federal regulations rest. He argued that the Obamacare individual mandate was "a law that is unprecedented on the federal level in American history" and observed that upholding the individual mandate would be a "a jarring prospect" that would "usher in a significant expansion of congressional authority with no obvious principled limit." The government's argument for the mandate, Kavanaugh continued, would "ultimately extend as well to mandatory purchases of" many other products, a result that would have "extraordinary ramifications." (1)\
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\* The right to individual self defense is at greater risk, IMHO, than Roe v. Wade. The Heller decision\--which established that there was an individual right to own guns\--was only reached in 2008.\
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A court dominated by liberal justices might well have reversed that decision, or made it toothless.\
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In a dissent he wrote in a subsequent case (\"Heller II\"), Kavanaugh rejected the use of a test that \"balanced the state's interest in public safety with the right to bear arms. Instead, he called \'on gun laws to be weighed based on "text, history, and tradition" and "by appropriate analogues thereto when dealing with modern weapons and new circumstances." In short, Kavanaugh's test asks whether a gun law or regulation has been historically or traditionally accepted, instead of deciding whether a local, state, or federal government's interest in public safety outweighs constitutional protections for gun ownership.\'\"(3)\
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Under Kavanaugh, the Heller decision is more secure, and future court cases will be able to strike down other unconstitutional restrictions on gun ownership.\
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\* Kavanaugh has taken a dim view of laws restricting campaign spending or mandating that non-profits disclose their donors. For example, in 2016, Kavanaugh decided one such challenge in holding that the Independence Institute, a non-profit organization, should be allowed to proceed in its First Amendment challenge against federal regulations requiring them to disclose their donors. (2)\
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1) [https://thefederalist.com/2018/07/03/brett-kavanaugh-said-obamacare-unprecedented-unlawful/](https://thefederalist.com/2018/07/03/brett-kavanaugh-said-obamacare-unprecedented-unlawful/){target="_blank"}\
2) [https://vettingroom.org/2018/08/27/judge-brett-kavanaugh-first-amendment-rulings/](https://vettingroom.org/2018/08/27/judge-brett-kavanaugh-first-amendment-rulings/){target="_blank"}\
3) [https://www.vox.com/2018/9/5/17820310/brett-kavanaugh-second-amendment-guns-supreme-court](https://www.vox.com/2018/9/5/17820310/brett-kavanaugh-second-amendment-guns-supreme-court){target="_blank"}
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