Here’s a podcast on how states can shut down ObamaCare.

And here are links to additional material, including an op-ed that provides an overview, a blog post about Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) getting involved, a blog post on how presidential candidates could get involved, and finally a blog post on what the Obama administration has to say about all this.

Podcast: How States Can Shut Down ObamaCare is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

This morning I outlined the stakes of today’s seminal cloture vote on Goodwin’s Liu’s nomination to the Ninth Circuit.  Well, now we have a result: cloture failed 52-43, with Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) joining all voting Republicans except Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) against cloture. Three Republicans plus Max Baucus (D-MT) were absent, while Orrin Hatch (R-UT) voted present because of his previous strong position against filibusters.

This is the first judicial nominee filibustered since the Gang of 14 brokered an agreement on President Bush’s nominees in 2005, forestalling then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s use of the so-called nuclear option (changing Senate rules to eliminate the judicial filibuster).  That agreement, to the extent it’s even still valid given the changed composition of the Senate (and with five of the 14 Gang members no longer in the Senate), allowed filibusters only in “extraordinary circumstances,” leaving that term undefined.

And so we may have just have witnessed the re-ignition of the war over judicial nominees.  Stay tuned as to whether today’s vote will come to signify the “Water-Liu”—h/t Walter Olson—for one party or another, or for our judiciary.

UPDATE: Liu Cloture Fails is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Here’s one idea that needs to be put down right now: that we should enact health care reform as a tribute to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), who has terminal brain cancer.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was recently quoted:

I would like to do [health care reform] as a legacy issue for [Kennedy], if I can — this would mean a lot to him.

I mean no disrespect to Sen. Kennedy.  Aside from those who have actually given their own lives for this country, few have given as much as he has.  I wish him peace, and a miraculous recovery.

My problem is with the choice of tribute. The health care reforms that Congress is cobbling together would dramatically reduce each American’s freedom to control her income, run a business, and make her own health care decisions.

The United States of America is a republic.  We do not make tributes of our citizens or their rights to the aristocracy.  Sen. Hatch does not owe his friend my freedom.

Sen. Hatch Does Not Owe His Friend My Freedom is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog