Ken Cuccinelli – Infinite Unknown

The state of Virginia can continue its lawsuit to stop the nation’s new health care law from taking effect, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson said he is allowing the suit against the U.S. government to proceed, saying no court has ever ruled on whether it’s constitutional to require Americans to purchase a product.

“While this case raises a host of complex constitutional issues, all seem to distill to the single question of whether or not Congress has the power to regulate — and tax — a citizen’s decision not to participate in interstate commerce,” Hudson wrote in a 32-page decision.

“Given the presence of some authority arguably supporting the theory underlying each side’s position, this court cannot conclude at this stage that the complaint fails to state a cause of action,” he wrote.

The decision is a small step, but in no way a minor matter to opponents of the health care bill rejected by all congressional Republicans but signed into law by President Obama earlier this year.

“This lawsuit is not about health care, it’s about our freedom and about standing up and calling on the federal government to follow the ultimate law of the land — the Constitution,” said Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who brought the suit. “The government cannot draft an unwilling citizen into commerce just so it can regulate him under the Commerce Clause.”

“Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has brought forward a specific and narrowly tailored objection to the Act. It warrants a full and thorough hearing in our courts. It is meritorious and constitutionally correct. … I look forward to the full hearing this fall,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Cuccinelli filed the suit almost immediately after the law was signed, arguing that it conflicts with Virginia’s legislation — also passed this year — exempting state residents from the requirement that all Americans be forced into health care coverage. Cuccinelli argued that the law violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

The Commerce Clause allows the U.S. government to regulate economic activity. But Virginia argued that it’s not economic activity when someone chooses to refrain from participating in commerce.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli: ManBearPig’s worst nightmare

This blog’s hero of the week is Ken Cuccinelli. He’s the new Attorney General of Virginia and he’s about to launch quite possibly the most delicious and worthwhile law suit in the entire history of litigation: one that could result in Michael Mann – arch-climate-fear-promoter, comedy You Tube Star, creator of the infamous, twice-discredited Hockey Stick – being fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for alleged misuse of state grant funding. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

Though Mann now works at Penn State University – an institution which appears to share UEA’s principled belief that the best response to the skullduggery exposed in the Climategate emails is to whitewash, whitewash, whitewash – his Achilles heel is Virginia, where he worked from 1999 to 2005. This, of course, was the period in which Mann sent some of his juiciest Climategate emails.

According to The Hook:

In papers sent to UVA April 23, Cuccinelli’s office commands the university to produce a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research conducted while Mann- now director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State- was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.

If Cuccinelli succeeds in finding a smoking gun like the purloined emails that led to the international scandal dubbed Climategate, Cuccinelli could seek the return of all the research money, legal fees, and trebled damages.

“Since it’s public money, there’s enough controversy to look in to the possible manipulation of data,” says Dr. Charles Battig, president of the nonprofit Piedmont Chapter Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment, a group that doubts the underpinnings of climate change theory.

Fingers crossed, eh?

Meanwhile, over at Climaterealists, legal expert John O’Sullivan casts an eye over yet another Mann-related lawsuit, this time one threatened by Mann himself against the creators of the hilarious Hide The Decline song which became a hit on You Tube. He concludes:

Judge Rules Virginia Can Continue Its Lawsuit To Stop Unconstitutional Obamacare

Climategate: Inventor of Mann-made global warming feels the heat