Posted on 06/28/2012 9:09:26 PM PDT by little jeremiah
....But while Roberts may have saved Obama's signature domestic legislation — and perhaps his reelection campaign — by siding with the court's liberal wing, he actually did it in spite of Obama, not because of him.
Roberts' opened his opinion today by declaring, unequivocally, that the individual mandate — which requires people to buy insurance or pay a penalty — is not constitutional under the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause. It's a direct shot at the Obama administration's defense of the law's constitutionality, which largely relied on those two clauses, which give Congress the power to regulate commerce and to enact provisions that are necessary to carry out its laws, respectively.
snip
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Occam's Razor.
Did Robert's vote on the Arizona case make any more sense than this?
Roberts is either a liar and phoney who was never a conservative or he has been compromised. His opinion in this case is not even readable. It is violently incomprehensible. It is the worst piece of legal reasoning I have ever tried to read and I could not get through it.
So what do you think it was? A dead woman or a live boy?
Actually, that charging lion wants to be your friend.
Actually, those new federal regulations will make your life easier.
Whatever Roberts did, or for whatever reason/s, I hate.
Sorry, no sale here either.
The thing that is most infuriating about this decisions is this: The Obama administration explicitly argued that this was NOT A TAX.
The other eight justices were ready to decide this case up or down based on the arguments made by both parties to the case - the states and the US Government/Obama administration. This was an up/down case on whether the Congress, invoking the Commerce Clause, could *force* you into doing commerce where you had been doing none before and had no intention otherwise of conducting commerce.
It was that simple: Could Congress force you to buy a product you didn’t want to buy for the simple reason that you were in the US and under the jurisdiction of the US?
And Roberts blew this simple question. He made an argument that the Obama administration explicitly denied they were making. Where did he get the right or power to do that? I have no idea.
Moreover, he’s a moron for decided that this was a tax. The legislation doesn’t impose a tax - it does impose a penalty for not carrying or obtaining insurance from some provider. The mandate is to buy the private insurance, not to pay the penalty. The penalty is conditional upon ignoring the mandate. The problem was always the mandated commerce.
Only a bunch of Ivy League graduates could take such a simple question and make it so complicated. Roberts, as we’ve now seen, is about as bad as Souter was.
Thanks to Bush, we have this idiot as the CJ of the SCOTUS for a long time to come...
That's the Trojan Horse.
Okay now that was funny and true!
Well said.
The only thing Roberts demolished was America. He gets the finest health care in the world so WTF does he care? I hope all his close friends and family abandon him for abandoning America. He deserves it. Our Forefathers would’ve wished him worse.
Maybe this - epilepsy meds, and a comment about an investigation into his kids’ being adopted perhaps illegally or irregularly:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2900740/posts?page=4#19
Ideally Roberts would have sided with Scalia but the lame Obama personal mandate which has little power to do anything to anyone or force anyone (Republican hype misses this completely) is not that much different than the way congress uses the tax code to bribe us with our own money.
My expectations were very reserved on this decision and I am not getting bent out of shape on it.
Republicans got so hung up on the powerless personal mandate that they ignore that a more serious part of the bill was thrown out, the medicaid mandates on the states.
Hopefully the whine-fest will die out in a day or two.
At this point I have no hope for the Republic without - well, re-set and start over.
Sorry, you are trying to put lipstick on a pig. This ruling was a disaster for us. There is no getting around what Roberts just did to this country. I chose not to go to the health club today. Roberts just ruled that I can be taxed for that. He is one SOB.
I don’t think it was a dead woman, unless that woman was Lady Liberty.
Roberts GAVE THEM an out ..HE brought up the idea that it’s a tax
May he rot in hell
WELL WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE FOLKS ?
WHERE IS THE MILLION MAN MARCH ON
DC /
WHERE IS THE NEW SUPER CHARGED TEA PARTY OUTRAGE..HUH WHERE IS IT ?
WHO IS ORGANIZING IT ? I HAVEN’T SEEN A WORD OF REACTION WITH TEETH IN IT
If we dont tear DC down then we deserve this
Roberts GAVE THEM an out ..HE brought up the idea that it’s a tax
May he rot in hell
WELL WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE FOLKS ?
WHERE IS THE MILLION MAN MARCH ON
DC /
WHERE IS THE NEW SUPER CHARGED TEA PARTY OUTRAGE..HUH WHERE IS IT ?
WHO IS ORGANIZING IT ? I HAVEN’T SEEN A WORD OF REACTION WITH TEETH IN IT
If we dont tear DC down then we deserve this
I know morons who still think ObamaCare will be giving them free health care in 2014. There is simply a huge swath of citizens who are hopelessly stupid. When they hear “tax”, they are going keep assuming that it’s taxes on the rich. And they’ll all be voting in November to further enable Obama.
Roberts GAVE THEM an out ..HE brought up the idea that it’s a tax
May he rot in hell
WELL WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE FOLKS ?
WHERE IS THE MILLION MAN MARCH ON
DC /
WHERE IS THE NEW SUPER CHARGED TEA PARTY OUTRAGE..HUH WHERE IS IT ?
WHO IS ORGANIZING IT ? I HAVEN’T SEEN A WORD OF REACTION WITH TEETH IN IT
If we dont tear DC down then we deserve this
The answer is probably in the FBI Files in Eric Holder’s desk.
It’s doubtful Robert’s saved Obama’s reelection, but it isn’t for lack of trying.
Easy, dude! It’s only been 15 hours since the decision. Million-man marches aren’t organized in 15 hours. Something that massive takes sometimes an entire day or two to organize!
Not enough. How about 33? And another 435 on the other side of the building.
They all need to go.
From the dissent by Alito,Kennedy,Scalia and Thomas:
"Our cases establish a clear line between a tax and a penalty: “‘[A] tax is an enforced contribution to provide for the support of government; a penalty . . . is an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act.’” United States v. Reorganized CF&I Fabricators of Utah, Inc., 518 U. S. 213, 224 (1996) (quoting United States v. La Franca, 282 U. S. 568, 572 (1931)). In a few cases, this Court has held that a “tax” imposed upon private conduct was so onerous as to be in effect a penalty. But we have never held—never—that a penalty imposed for violation of the law was so trivial as to be in effect a tax. We have never held that any exaction imposed for violation of the law is an exercise of Congress’ taxing power—even when the statute calls it a tax, much less when (as here) the statute repeatedly calls it a penalty. When an act “adopt[s] the criteria of wrongdoing” and then imposes a monetary penalty as the “principal consequence on those who transgress its standard,” it creates a regulatory penalty, not a tax. Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U. S. 20, 38 (1922)."
Oh My God, the king was celebrating!!!
Roberts isn’t qualified to shine Scalia’s shoes.
SORRY Cyber Liberty!
I replied to the wrong post!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNCyEC9r_mk&feature=relmfu
Thanks for posting this. Peter Schiff is brilliant.
Everyone of us should watch this. He eviscerates this ruling, shows just how far from the Constitution Roberts had to stray to make his traitorous ruling, and even provides some strategies for challenging it.
Agreed.
Sure be nice to know where the Ginsberg threat info came from.
It would explain a few things - if true. However, not sure the enormity of this ruling would be worth it and Obama would still have had to get someone else confirmed which wouldn’t necessarily be easy.
Here is the relevent passage you are missing (among many):
The individual mandate, by contrast, vests Congress with the extraordinary ability to create the necessary predicate to the exercise of an enumerated power
What, pray tell, is the enumerated power which the individual mandate exercises?
[Hint: NONE.]
How stupid. When Nancy Pelosi is smiling, America has just taken one in the ass. I can’t stand these Beltway “conservatives” who are either lying to us, or are simply imbeciles. Bob
The writer is trying to put lipstick on a pig. I just posted it hoping people would clarify, and they are. I’ve been on the verge of vomiting all day.
The only good thing I see is that people are getting riled up. Unless the bit about the Commerce Clause being disembowelled is correct.
If true, the Ginsberg threat is still not enough for Roberts to vote for this gigantic offense.
I’m mind boggled, basically.
There’s a bunch of things that don’t quite add up. I’m not ready to hop on the conspiracy bandwagon here, but there’s several things that are very odd about the whole Charlie-Foxtrot:
1. Ginsburg’s opinion really took hammer and tongs to Roberts on the commerce clause issue... in somewhat strident language for a SCOTUS justice.
I would have expected her to pull these punches since she was getting what she ultimately wanted - the ACA to stand and the mandate to stand.
2. The dissent by Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Kennedy refers to Ginsburg’s opinion as the “dissent” - meaning their position was the majority opinion at one time.
3. The dissent by Thomas, Scalia, et al has what appears to be a tacked-on response to the taxing issue - at the end.
4. There’s much duplication by Scalia and Roberts on the issue of the Commerce Clause and Medicare, but Scalia’s discussion of these issues never mentions Roberts’. It never appears to say that it “agree with” or mention Roberts’ opinion.
The whole mess, taken together, gives an impression that Roberts wrote his opinion without either the liberal wing or conservative wing of the SCOTUS really knowing what he was writing. It didn’t need to be written at the last minute from what I see, but it did need to be written without collaboration with either set of justices.
I don’t know if Roberts is an idiot, a liberal, a coward, on meds, blackmailed/threatened, or what.
I do know that 0bastardcare is a rotten, stinking pile of crap. And that Roberts was WRONG to vote that it is constitutional in any way, shape or form.
NO ONE is going to point to Roberts’ mild criticism of commerce clause usage in the rendering of any GOOD decisions. Common sense tells you that. His ruling sounded like the ramblings of a drunk. Bob
Thanks.
I really think it needs its own thread. Far and away the most comprehensive analysis of the ruling that I have seen.
I can’t read any legal stuff and understand it, so I take your word about it.
I hated his vote on AZ too.
Additionally, have the courts hashed tax law pretty thoroughly? The Obamacare “tax” isn't really an income (it's not based on income) or an excise tax. As you wrote, it really doesn't seem to fall into any of the existing, constitutional tax schemes.
The Obamacare mandate...er...tax appears unconstitutional, and the SCOTUS can't rule on that until someone has standing, i.e. the tax is actually collected.
Could Roberts be playing the long game, setting up the necessary pieces to go for a checkmate later?
Thank you for your statement, I have read several statements that Roberts argument is strange to say the least. He twisted himself into a pretzel to rationalize his reasoning. There is no legal reasoning. He is trying to ptotect his family. Illegal adoption! I am a adoptive mother, I know when something smells funky. Trust me.
How could he in one paragraph say, "They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce,not to compel it.", but STILL essentially allow Congress to compel citizens by penalizing them with a tax? It just makes NO sense.
I just read the transcript of what Rush said. Something is very, very weird.
And the South won!
That cowardly scumbag Roberts demolished the Constitution. Period.
The spin is making me sick.
Good point.
I’m really an ignorant person when it comes to legalese/governmentese. I was sort of hoping the article made a bit of sense, because Roberts’ ruling makes NO sense to me. I guess the only good thing is more people are raging angry.
The conventional wisdom on this is that Roberts sided with the liberals primarily because he was afraid of the criticism that would come down on the court if he didn’t. If true, that makes him one of the most spineless pussbags ever to wear a robe.
Exactly. Roberts should have voted with Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Kennedy and trashed the entire ObamaCare law! I'm sick of hearing all of this "Roberts is a genius" stuff. Roberts' ruling is a disgrace.
“Can we all play this game?
Actually, the Cubs won the ‘69 World Series.
Actually, investors with Madoff did quite well.
Actually, Joe Biden is a decisive thinker.
Actually, the Titanic was an engineerg masterpiece..... “
______________________________________________
I can’t get html on this French keyboard-sorry for the quotes and no italics. But I’d like to play. How’s this:
“Actually, Bernie Ebbers protected my husband’s MCI/Worldcom 401K way back when....”
What a depressing day. I really didn’t think this was coming. I hope we can make lemonade with lemons, but like so many, I’m pretty discouraged.
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