Roberts Too Clever By Half

[Geee]

American Spectator:

On Thursday morning, in the most anticipated Supreme Court ruling in recent American history, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the Court's four liberal Justices to uphold Obamacare's "individual mandate" as a tax, even while Roberts agreed with the four conservative members of the Court that the mandate would be unconstitutional if considered only based on the Commerce Clause.

The liberal mass media began immediate preening for their president, with the New York Times calling the ruling a "victory for Obama," the Washington Post proclaiming "a win for Obama today," and MSNBC announcing "a dramatic victory."

They may be right, but the decision may equally turn out to be a pyrrhic victory for President Obama, motivating conservatives across the country and pushing independent voters along with skeptical conservatives and libertarians fully into the arms of Mitt Romney.

Since the Court found the mandate constitutional (despite an embarrassing headline by CNN to the contrary), it rendered moot challenges to other important aspects of the Act, including guaranteed issue and community rating (requiring insurance companies to issue insurance to everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions and without considering most factors specific to a given applicant other than age and tobacco use).

The only aspect of Obamacare which was overturned, on a 7-2 vote, was the provision that would strip a state of its existing federal Medicaid funds if the state refused to comply with the law's provisions to expand Medicaid.

In opening his reading from the conservative Justices' dissent, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who just relinquished -- though perhaps unfairly -- the title of most suspect conservative on the Court to Chief Justice Roberts, noted "In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety." I agree entirely.

[Geee]

The Chief Justice Done Good

 

 

 

Chief Justice John Roberts has handed a remarkable victory to American conservatives by threading the judicial needle with perfect precision. The initial disappointment collectively felt by Americans who had hoped for a Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Obamacare soon will be replaced, upon further reflection, by the excitement that will come with a fuller appreciation of what the Chief Justice has wrought.

First, almost completely unnoticed, the Chief Justice voted with his four conservative colleagues in drawing an unprecedented red line against Washington wielding the Constitution's Commerce Clause in the future to justify federal intrusion into the personal lives of Americans. This decision will restrict American Presidents and future Congresses for a generation and more.

Until Thursday's decision, for more than 70 years, virtually every leading Supreme Court decision on the reach of the Commerce Clause has sided with federal intrusion. Although there have been isolated exceptions -- e.g., United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995) (limiting federal regulation regarding carrying guns near schools) and United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000) (limiting power of the federal government to expand rights of women to sue attackers) -- the leading cases on the Commerce Clause, often relying on precedents like Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) (holding that Congress could prevent a person from growing wheat for his own personal consumption on his own private land), have held that the federal government can force Americans to do or not do, to buy or not buy, virtually anything if couched as an act to facilitate or regulate interstate commerce. Wickard "always has been regarded as the ne plus ultra of expansive Commerce Clause jurisprudence." (Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., dissenting, at 3.)

It was this very line of Wickard-consistent Supreme Court opinions that served as the basis for a long line of lower federal courts, both district courts and federal appeals courts, choosing to uphold ObamaCare as that bill was tested through the judiciary. However, with Chief Justice Roberts almost surreptitiously joining with Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy in ruling that ObamaCare is barred by the federal Commerce Clause, a new era has begun in Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

Every liberal citation to Wickard will be countered by a conservative citing to Chief Justice Roberts's opinion: "If no enumerated power authorizes Congress to pass a certain law, that law may not be enacted, even if it would not violate any of the express prohibitions in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the Constitution. . . . The Court today holds that our Constitution protects us from federal regulation under the Commerce Clause so long as we abstain from the regulated activity. The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. . . . The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance." (National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Slip op. at 3, 41-42, 44)

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/the_chief_justice_done_good.html

[Geee]

Clarice's Pieces

 

 

Obamacare: 'Things are now up for Grabs'

 

"n the 1980s, the political psychologist Philip E. Tetlock began systematically quizzing 284 political experts - most of whom were political science Ph.D.'s - on dozens of basic questions, like whether a country would go to war, leave NATO or change its boundaries or a political leader would remain in office. His book "Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?" won the A.P.S.A.'s prize for the best book published on government, politics or international affairs.

Professor Tetlock's main finding? Chimps randomly throwing darts at the possible outcomes would have done almost as well as the experts."

You could pretty much say this about the Obamacare case. Hundreds of pages of analysis and predictions and few if any reflected the final, rather surprising outcome: Four ,and potentially five justices if one reads Roberts carefully, have for the first time since the FDR court recognized there are substantial limitations on the power of Congress to regulate behavior under the cloak of the Constitution's Commerce Clause and, just as significantly, seven justices determined that Congress cannot blackmail the states into accepting new federal programs by threatening to cut off funding under existing programs should they refuse to accept the expanded programs.

(a) First looks at the opinion suggest the gloom of many conservatives is not warranted: The decision has much to commend it.

As a starter, Justice Roberts' statement: " It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices." is as clear a statement of conservative thought about the Court's role as one might find in a Supreme Court case of recent vintage.

On the individual mandate, Roberts joined with the left wing of the Court and sustained it but only after finding it was not authorized by the Commerce Clause and was justified only if one considered it a tax on inactivity-in this case the failure to secure insurance.

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/obamacare_things_are_now_up_for_grabs.html

[Geee]

The Constitutional Importance of the ObamaCare Ruling

 

 

The United States Supreme Court has finally spoken on the constitutionality of Obamacare, particularly its core provision – the so-called individual mandate under which most Americans must buy health care insurance with at least the minimum amount of coverage stipulated by the federal government or pay a fine. The Supreme Court upheld the mandate on the grounds that it is within the taxing authority of Congress (Art. I, §8, cl. 1). Chief Justice John Roberts provided the swing vote to give the liberal justices on the bench the majority they needed to uphold the controversial law.

In a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, he concluded that “Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.” Although the Obama administration had tried to characterize the individual mandate as a legitimate exercise of congressional power under the separate Commerce Clause of the Constitution (Art. I, §8, clause 3), Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion rejected that approach and opted to call the fine, imposed on individuals who decide not to buy health insurance despite the mandate, a tax.

This sets up a very interesting political dynamic for this year’s presidential campaign. President Obama can claim a victory on the substance of his health care law. His most significant domestic policy achievement has now been declared constitutional by a majority of the Supreme Court led by the normally conservative Chief Justice. On the other hand, Obama can no longer duck the reality that Obamacare is built on the foundation of huge tax increases that affect virtually all Americans. Furthermore, the left’s incessant attacks against the court and the right as of late — that the conservative Supreme Court has become corrupted by “politicalization” and “activism” — have suddenly become obsolete and exposed as hypocritical. After a slim 5-4 ruling, of the kind leftists typically scorn as illegitimate, The New York Times‘ Ethan Bronner is now opining on the Roberts court’s “balance” and judiciousness. Robert Shrum at the Daily Beast praised the split decision as “clear and compelling,” where before he was anxious to lead the offensive against the “Tea Party Supreme Court” and the “five horsemen of the judicial right.” Much has changed in a single day.

 

The first impression, and the one that is being played out in the mainstream media, is that Chief Justice Roberts had some sort of epiphany and saw the logic of the left’s arguments in upholding Obamacare. Yet while the outcome supported by Chief Justice Roberts certainly looks that way and is disappointing to many conservatives, the Chief Justice included a number of nuggets in his opinion that will serve conservatives well in future cases.

Indeed, although the Obama administration won the day in terms of the constitutional validation of Obamacare by the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion lays down some important markers regarding the core constitutional principle of enumerated federal powers. This may be useful in the event of any future attempts by a left-leaning Congress to push beyond discernible limitations on its power under the Commerce Clause in order to regulate the everyday lives of the American people.

“If no enumerated power authorizes Congress to pass a certain law, that law may not be enacted, even if it would not violate any of the express prohibitions in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the Constitution,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “The Federal Government has expanded dramatically over the past two centuries, but it still must show that a constitutional grant of power authorizes each of its actions.”

Chief Justice Roberts also lays down a marker on the principle of federalism – the relationship between the federal and state governments:

Because the police power is controlled by 50 different States instead of one national sovereign, the facets of governing that touch on citizens’ daily lives are normally administered by smaller governments closer to the governed.

 

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/29/understanding-the-obamacare-ruling/

[Geee]

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in the Court Decision- J. Christian Adams

 

 

There will be lots of analysis and spin today on the Supreme Court’s decision. But here is all you need to know. The Court got the Commerce Clause part right, but so what? They were never going to find the mandate within the power of the Commerce Clause. The Court, on the other hand, disregarded the position of the government and read the law to be a tax, and therefore within the power of the Constitution.

The Good:

ADVERTISEMENT

The Constitution grants Congress the power to “regulate Commerce.” Art. I, §8, cl. 3 (emphasis added). The power to regulate commerce presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated. This Court’s precedent reflects this understanding: As expansive as this Court’s cases construing the scope of the commerce power have been, they uniformly describe the power as reaching “activity.” E.g., United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 560. The individual mandate, however, does not regulate existing commercial activity. It instead compels individuals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product, on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce.

Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority.

The Bad:

In pressing its taxing power argument, the Government asks the Court to view the mandate as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product. Because “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order tosave a statute from unconstitutionality,” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657, the question is whether it is “fairly possible” to interpret the mandate as imposing such a tax, Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62. Pp. 31–32.

 

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/06/28/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-in-the-court-decision/

[Geee]

ObamaCare Ruling: Pure Fraud and No Due Process

 

 

Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court decided that Americans have no right to due process. Indeed, the Court not only upheld a fraud perpetrated on the public — it became a willing participant.

The assessment charged for failure to comply with ObamaCare’s “individual mandate,” which requires Americans to purchase health insurance, was presented to the country by the administration and the Democratic Congress as a penalty assessed for lawlessness — i.e., for refusing to honor this new legal requirement. It was strenuously denied by proponents that they were raising taxes.

The Obama administration, in particular, was adamant that the assessment was a penalty, not a tax: the president himself indignantly objected to a suggestion to the contrary in an ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos. Obama officials also vigorously maintained that there had been no violation of the president’s oft-repeated campaign pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. Moreover, as stingingly noted in the joint dissenting opinion of Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito, the Democratic majority in Congress rejected an earlier version of the bill that became ObamaCare precisely because it imposed a tax — lawmakers intentionally substituted a mandate with a penalty for failure to comply so they could continue to contend that no one’s taxes were being raised.

ADVERTISEMENT

Chief Justice Roberts claims that Congress simply used the wrong label. That is legerdemain. This is not a case in which Congress was confused, or inadvertently used the wrong term under circumstances where the error wasn’t called to its attention. The tax-or-penalty question was a hotly contested issue. As the dissent points out, it is one thing for a court to construe as a tax an exaction that “bore an agnostic label that does not entail the significant constitutional consequences of a penalty — such as ‘license’…. But we have never — never – treated as a tax an exaction which faces up to the critical difference between a tax and a penalty, and explicitly denominates the exaction a ‘penalty.’”

Let’s say that, back when I was a prosecutor, I tried and convicted a man on a charge of conspiring to sell narcotics. I can prove he was conspiring, but it was really to sell stolen property. I convict him but, on appeal, the court holds, “The prosecutor’s evidence that it was drugs the defendant conspired to sell is wholly lacking.” At that point, the conviction has to be dismissed, and if I want to try him a second time, this time for conspiring to sell stolen property, I’ve got to indict him and start the whole process over again.

Let’s suppose, however, that the appeals court instead said, “Eh, drugs, stolen property, what’s the big whup? You just wrote the wrong commodity into the indictment. So let’s not bother with a whole new trial at which you’d have to prove the correct charge to a jury. Let’s just rewrite the indictment and pretend that it says ‘stolen property’ instead of ‘narcotics.’ Then we can uphold the conviction and call it a day.”

That would never be permitted to happen — not even to a crook of whose guilt we were certain. It would be an outrageous violation of due process, a conviction obtained by false pretenses, that would not be allowed to stand.

 

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/06/28/obamacare-ruling-pure-fraud-and-no-due-process/

[Geee]

The Supremes Get It Fundamentally Wrong

 

 

What a depressing day for America: Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal justices on the Supreme Court as the fifth and pivotal vote that allowed most of Obamacare to survive.

While much of the speculation in the academic and media world was about Justice Anthony Kennedy as the possible swing vote, one of the lawyers in my office kept saying over the past few months that Roberts was actually the weak link. Unfortunately, that prediction turned out to be all too accurate.

By upholding the individual mandate, the Court got it exactly wrong. They’ve issued a ruling with terrible implications for the future.

ADVERTISEMENT

It is true that the majority opinion, written by Roberts, stated that the individual mandate was indeed beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause. While the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate commerce, the power to do so presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated. As expansive as the Supreme Court’s prior reading of that power has been, those prior cases have uniformly described the power as reaching “activity.”

According to Roberts, the individual mandate does not regulate existing commercial activity. Instead, it compels individuals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce.

Roberts refused to go down that path, concluding that would open a new and potentially vast and unlimited domain of congressional authority and power. There is no doubt that liberal scholars will be disappointed by this part of the ruling, since they do not believe there should be any limits on congressional power and that the Commerce Clause should be extended to cover virtually anything that Congress wants to do. What should scare Americans is that the four liberal justices, in a concurring opinion written by Justice Ginsburg, concluded that the individual mandate was within the authority of Congress under the Commerce Clause.

Roberts also refused to uphold the individual mandate based on the government’s second, fallback position, the “Necessary and Proper” clause. Roberts said that all of the Court’s prior cases on this clause have involved exercises of congressional authority derivative of, and in service to, a power specifically granted to Congress. Even if the individual mandate is necessary for Obamcare to work, such an expansion of federal power is not a “proper” means to implement the law.

 

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-supremes-get-it-fundamentally-wrong/

[Geee]

WHY DID ROBERTS DO IT?

 

I wasn’t surprised that the challenge to the constitutionality of Obamacare didn’t command five votes at the Supreme Court. But it did surprise me that the hold-out, so to speak, was Chief Justice Roberts rather than Justice Kennedy.

Why didn’t Roberts pull the trigger? Charles Krauthammer attributes his decision to the fact that, as Chief Justice, Roberts sees himself as uniquely entrusted with the custodianship of the court’s legitimacy, reputation and stature. As such, says Krauthammer, Roberts is acutely aware that the judiciary’s arrogation of power has eroded the esteem in which it was once held. Thus, he saved Obamacare in order to avoid the further erosion that might result from striking down landmark legislation.

Krauthammer may be right. One of his former clerks, Joshua Hawley, takes the same view.

But the Court’s status likely will be eroded more by the result Roberts reached than by a decision striking down Obamacare. Polls show that a solid majority of Americans oppose the individual mandate as an improper restriction on individual liberty. A Supreme Court that won’t step in to prevent such a restriction is likely to lose, rather than gain, esteem. Moreover, the fact that the majority went along with President Obama’s bait-and-switch – now it’s not a tax, now it is – may hurt the Court’s stature.

Thus, I propose a related but somewhat different explanation – Roberts’ strong commitment to “judicial modesty.” Roberts has spoken clearly about this commitment, and it’s time to take him seriously.

Judicial modesty is related to promoting the perceived legitimacy of the Court. An aggressive, immodest judiciary risks losing esteem. But the two explanations – Krauthammer’s and mine – aren’t identical. Judicial modesty is a theory of judging, not a theory of pure political expediency. And it is independent of Roberts’ status as Chief Justice. Unlike Krauthammer, I believe Roberts would have reached the same decision had he been an Associate Justice.

 

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/06/why-did-roberts-do-it.php

[Geee]

Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito Dissent: 'We Cannot Rewrite the Statute to Be What It Is Not'

 

Chief Justice John Roberts held in his majority opinion today that Obamacare's individual mandate may be considered a constitutional tax rather than an unconstitutional mandate.

Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito forcefully disagree with Roberts in their dissent. "[W]e cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not," the four Justices write. "[W]e have never—never—treated as a tax an exaction which faces up to the critical difference between a tax and a penalty, and explicitly denominates the exaction a 'penalty.' Eighteen times in §5000A itself and elsewhere throughout the Act, Congress called the exaction in §5000A( a 'penalty.'"

The dissenting Justices also argue that "judicial tax-writing is particularly troubling," since the Constitution requires tax bills to originate in the House of Representatives, "the legislative body most accountable to the people, where legislators must weigh the need for the tax against the terrible price they might pay at their next election, which is never more than two years off."

 

[T]o say that the Individual Mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it. Judicial tax-writing is particularly troubling. Taxes have never been popular, see, e.g., Stamp Act of 1765, and in part for that reason, the Constitution requires tax increases to originate in the House of Representatives. See Art. I, §7, cl. 1. That is to say, they must originate in the legislative body most accountable to the people, where legislators must weigh the need for the tax against the terrible price they might pay at their next election, which is never more than two years off. The Federalist No. 58 “defend[ed] the decision to give the origination power to the House on the ground that the Chamber that is more accountable to the people should have the primary role in raising revenue.” United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U. S. 385, 395 (1990). We have no doubt that Congress knew precisely what it was doing when it rejected an earlier version of this legislation that imposed a tax instead of a requirement-with-penalty. See Affordable Health Care for America Act, H. R. 3962, 111th Cong., 1st Sess., §501 (2009); America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009, S. 1796, 111th Cong., 1st Sess., §1301. Imposing a tax through judicial legislation inverts the constitutional scheme, and places the power to tax in the branch of government least accountable to the citizenry. [...]

 

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/scalia-kennedy-thomas-and-alito-dissent-we-cannot-rewrite-statute-be-what-it-not_647952.html

[Geee]

Examiner Editorial: Don't panic over Obamacare ruling - look instead to November

Don't panic over Obamacare ruling - look instead to November

 

One can forgive CNN for reporting Thursday's health care verdict incorrectly on the first try. When Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion stated that Obamacare's requirement that all Americans purchase insurance "is not a valid exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause," it seemed like an obvious conservative victory -- he was striking down part or all of the law. Instead, Roberts joined with the liberals on the Court and adopted a rationale for keeping the mandate that nearly every other court had rejected to date. They ruled that the mandate could be construed as a tax, which makes it justifiable under Congress' enumerated constitutional power "to lay and collect taxes."

Conservatives were furious, and already Roberts has been skewered (justly, for the most part) by quite a few conservative commentators and editorialists. But here is our advice on how to take the decision: Don't panic.

Yes, it is disappointing, but it is not the end of the republic. The ruling even contains some good. And besides, it just puts conservatives right where they expected to be a few months ago, before the administration's hapless performance in oral arguments gave them false hopes.

This legal challenge to the health care law's individual mandate was never expected to amount to much. One year ago, no one would have thought it would persuade the fickle Justice Anthony Kennedy, or come within one vote of striking President Obama's entire health care reform law at once.

More importantly, the case did produce two small but real victories. First, the Roberts opinion establishes, in a major case, a clear limit on Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce -- the very power which has, for decades, served as a catch-all justification for the expansion of big government into areas the founders would never have imagined. Although it sets a poor precedent for abuse of the already-much-abused taxing power, the expansion of government through that channel is both politically and legally more difficult. The more recent precedents restraining federal power -- Lopez and Morrison -- are not only safe, but stronger because of this case.

Second, the legal clarification that the individual mandate is, in fact, a health tax on the uninsured means that it will be much easier to repeal, if Republicans can only win control of the Senate in the next election. Many parts of the health care law were already vulnerable to a simple majority vote in the Senate through the reconciliation process. Now the mandate -- or rather, the health tax -- is one of them.

 

http://washingtonexaminer.com/examiner-editorial-dont-panic-over-obamacare-ruling-look-instead-to-november/article/2500918

[Pepper]

Thanks, @Geee. Will read later.

[Geee]

Thanks, @Geee. Will read later.

 

Tell you the truth @Pepper, so will I. Posted them but have only had time to read portions of most of them

[Evad]

Thanks, @Geee. Will read later.

 

Tell you the truth @Pepper, so will I. Posted them but have only had time to read portions of most of them

Yes..a read for later.

Right now I'm so depressed that nothing I read computes.

Maybe later I will be able to see the silver lining in this dark cloud.

[Draggingtree]

So Congress voted to hold A. G. Holder in contempt, and Justice Robert vote puts him in contempt with the American public.

[Valin]

Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito Dissent: 'We Cannot Rewrite the Statute to Be What It Is Not'

 

Chief Justice John Roberts held in his majority opinion today that Obamacare's individual mandate may be considered a constitutional tax rather than an unconstitutional mandate.

Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito forcefully disagree with Roberts in their dissent. "[W]e cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not," the four Justices write. "[W]e have never—never—treated as a tax an exaction which faces up to the critical difference between a tax and a penalty, and explicitly denominates the exaction a 'penalty.' Eighteen times in §5000A itself and elsewhere throughout the Act, Congress called the exaction in §5000A( a 'penalty.'"

The dissenting Justices also argue that "judicial tax-writing is particularly troubling," since the Constitution requires tax bills to originate in the House of Representatives, "the legislative body most accountable to the people, where legislators must weigh the need for the tax against the terrible price they might pay at their next election, which is never more than two years off."

 

[T]o say that the Individual Mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it. Judicial tax-writing is particularly troubling. Taxes have never been popular, see, e.g., Stamp Act of 1765, and in part for that reason, the Constitution requires tax increases to originate in the House of Representatives. See Art. I, §7, cl. 1. That is to say, they must originate in the legislative body most accountable to the people, where legislators must weigh the need for the tax against the terrible price they might pay at their next election, which is never more than two years off. The Federalist No. 58 “defend[ed] the decision to give the origination power to the House on the ground that the Chamber that is more accountable to the people should have the primary role in raising revenue.” United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U. S. 385, 395 (1990). We have no doubt that Congress knew precisely what it was doing when it rejected an earlier version of this legislation that imposed a tax instead of a requirement-with-penalty. See Affordable Health Care for America Act, H. R. 3962, 111th Cong., 1st Sess., §501 (2009); America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009, S. 1796, 111th Cong., 1st Sess., §1301. Imposing a tax through judicial legislation inverts the constitutional scheme, and places the power to tax in the branch of government least accountable to the citizenry. [...]

 

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/scalia-kennedy-thomas-and-alito-dissent-we-cannot-rewrite-statute-be-what-it-not_647952.html

 

Excellent.

[Pepper]

@Evad

I expect this will help the right side gain victory in November.

[righteousmomma]

I agree, Pepper. I was as upset as anyone at first but if even liberal Geraldo is saying that this was a brilliant move on Roberts part because it gives the Republicans the election then it tells me that the "tax" expose was needed. Not just politics as usual bu finally some hard truths the media cannot ignore. Plus from what I gather the Supreme Court had a narrow decision to make and though I am disappointed that it was not repealed that was not the decision they were asked to make.

Oh and you notice Kennedy clearly got in their belief that the whole shebang is unconstitutional. The left for the first time is painted in a corner.

Like I said yesterday I hope the usual inside the Beltway mentality that Repub leadership is prone to does not overtake Romney.

[Valin]

This could be a sign of The End Times!

 

Pat Buchanan

 

 

[Valin]

@Evad

I expect this will help the right side gain victory in November.

 

The Hill: Romney raises $4.3M after health ruling

Alicia M. Cohn

06/29/12 07:16 AM ET

 

 

Now I could be wrong, but I think Romney just discovered a new issue.

 

 

[Pepper]

@rightheousmomma

I saw that clip with Geraldo and his "brilliant move" and "poison pill" to Obama comments. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time Geraldo panders to the right nor the first time that he has been wrong.

; )

[Pepper]

 

RoadtoRepeal.com

[Draggingtree]

Health Care Ruling: A Strange Constitutional Win

 

by Randy Barnett

Professor Randy Barnett is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and teaches constitutional law at the Georgetown Law Center and is author of Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (Princeton 2005).

Added to cato.org on June 28, 2012

This article appeared in The DC Examiner on June 28, 2012.

Who would have thought we could win our Commerce Clause challenge while the Affordable Care Act is upheld?

Thursday, the Roberts court vindicated all of our arguments about why the individual insurance mandate exceeded the commerce power: "The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. "That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it." Then the court went further to invalidate the health care law's withholding of existing Medicaid funding as coercive, thereby finding an enforceable limit on the Spending Power.

By rewriting the law to make it a "tax," however, the court has now thrown Obamacare into the political process. The people will decide at the ballot box whether this so-called "tax" will stand.

Just as important, the people will decide whether future Supreme Court nominees will pledge to enforce the Constitution's restrictions on the power of Congress. Regardless of whether Roberts switched his vote in response to the enormous pressure brought to bear on him by President Obama, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the entire progressive establishment, future nominees to the Supreme Court must be vetted to ensure they have the character to stand against the intense political pressure to Read More http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/health-care-ruling-strange-constitutional-win

[Pepper]

Everything is free now ! Whee Whee

 

 

[righteousmomma]

I was trying to be optimistic. Now Rush has my mood down again.

Guess you are listening also, pepper.

[Geee]

@rightheousmomma

I saw that clip with Geraldo and his "brilliant move" and "poison pill" to Obama comments. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time Geraldo panders to the right nor the first time that he has been wrong.

; )

 

I was hoping that Rush would make me feel better---Uh--------NOPE!