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John Roberts Compromise of 2012
The Washington Post ^
| June 29, 2012
| Charles Lane
Posted on 07/01/2012 4:12:25 PM PDT by centurion316
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To: CaptainMorgantown
Actually, the parallels to
Dred Scott are somewhat chilling in terms of the place where the country now is: This election will be decided in just eleven or twelve "border States." In all of the other States, the opposition party has no chance whatsoever. That tells you where we are inexorably headed...
An interesting aside is that Chief Justice Taney worked the politics behind the scenes very hard to line up support from the other Justices and then wrote the decision himself.
21
posted on
07/01/2012 4:49:06 PM PDT
by
FredZarguna
(When you find yourself arguing against Scalia and Thomas, you AREN'T a conservative.)
To: plain talk
“Division and dysfunction” that was promoted by communist agitators.
They always figure that compromise is us giving into them. Well getting between me and my doctor is going wayy too far and it’s now literally a matter of life and death. There are a lot of ways to solve our health care issues other than seizing control of the entire system a la the UK but the communists just can’t help themselves.
22
posted on
07/01/2012 4:50:25 PM PDT
by
Aria
( 2008 wasn't an election - it was a coup d'etat.)
To: centurion316
To: afraidfortherepublic
That is friggin’ awesome!
Thanks for posting.
To: John Valentine
So right. This country passed dysfunction junction a ways back. Its going to be a miracle if Roberts ruling doesn’t start CWII.
25
posted on
07/01/2012 6:28:01 PM PDT
by
Georgia Girl 2
(The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
To: centurion316
Maybe Benedict Roberts needs a hearing aid! CZAR B.O. and everyone in his adminstration who presented their legal arguments to the court said that the penalty was NOT a TAX. I guess Benedict didn't hear them.
So good old Benedict, afraid of what the Washington Compost and the NY Slimes would say about him, upheld the law by rewriting it. IMAGINE THAT, A CONSERVATIVE LEGISLATOR ON THE BENCH?
What happened to the limitation that a TAX cannot be appealed until it is being collected? CZAR B.O.'s TAX will be collected in 2014. NO STANDING?
Benedict's Court also did a wonderful job on the "Sovereign" State of Arizona! Although the Feds claim exclusive authority on Immigration, I wonder can a State require proof of legal presence, like the European Countries that we are so diligently trying to copy?
To: leprechaun9
The Court has ruled that the Mandate expressed in the ACA is a tax and so as a matter of law that’s what it now is. Note that the President’s minions are supporting your argument, they are insisting that it is still a mandate.
People don’t really understand mandates, but they do understand taxes and they don’t like them very much. The Administration’s worst nightmare is that Obamacare be perceived to be the gigantic tax increase that it really is.
This issue will not be resolved in the courts, it will be resolved at the ballot box.
To: centurion316
The justices overcame their differencesHuh? Roberts did not convince a single liberal justice that the Commerce Clause limits government power.
The liberals took his bizarre "tax" opinion upholding ObamaCare as a surprise gift, kicked him in the balls, laughed and went on their way thinking to themselves what a fool that man was.
To: centurion316
the five-justice vote for a restrictive reading of the Constitutions commerce clause caps that font of federal power.Actually it does NOT "cap that font of federal power."
Roberts screwed the pooch on this.
Had he voted WITH the 4 conservatives to strike down ObamaCare as a violation of the Commerce Clause, then this decision would be binding precedent for the holding limiting the power of government under the Commerce Clause.
But as Ginsburg points out in her dissent, by deciding to uphold ObamaCare as a valid "tax," Roberts' long discussion of the Commerce Clause is beside the point. As far as legal precedent goes, Roberts could just as well have omitted that discussion entirely.
The liberal justices can take the position that because Roberts found a ground on which the tax can stand, his discussion of other grounds that might or might not trouble him is irrelevant and just blowing wind. It is, in legal terms, dicta, and therefore not binding precedent.
So if we get a 5-4 liberal court, the court does not even have to make a naked move to overrule binding Commerce Clause precedent in order to give the government unlimited power.
The liberals will simply point out that Roberts' bloviating on the Commerce Clause in the ObamaCare decision was just dicta and is not binding precedent.
To: centurion316; Noumenon
the likes of which we have not seen since pre-Civil War days.That's what I'm afraid of.
Roger Taney was worried about the potential of war over slavery, so (he imagined) he would settle the issue once and for all, by opining that "a negro has no rights that any white man is bound to respect".
Similarly, John Roberts, fearful of conflict over our steady march to socialism, believes that he has settled the matter by opining that the written Constitution provides no protection to any man who opposes the march of progressivism, and that the plain words of a statute can and will be construed to mean something else if the plain words disadvantage progressives.
But, as was true of Dred Scott, the decision leaves the majority no way out through republican processes.
I wonder if Roberts can hear the distant thunder all the way to Malta?
30
posted on
07/01/2012 8:15:23 PM PDT
by
Jim Noble
(Anna Wintour makes Teresa Heinz Kerry look like Dolly Parton.)
To: Georgia Girl 2; John Valentine
So right. This country passed dysfunction junction a ways back. Its going to be a miracle if Roberts ruling doesnt start CWII. Indeed; I actually would not be surprised if it did though.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. -- John Adams
As the above quote so deftly puts it, facts are facts. We now have the court telling us that something so factually inconsistent with the constitution is consistent that all but the most irrational of minds must see it. (The decision itself is internally inconsistent, one minute it's a tax, wait no it's a penalty.)
IOW, Chief Justice Roberts is saying: we can alter facts!
31
posted on
07/01/2012 8:17:42 PM PDT
by
OneWingedShark
(Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
To: Tench_Coxe
"But the ruling is historic because it is a Compromise a crisis-averting pact across lines of ideology, party and region, the likes of which we have not seen since pre-Civil War days. " And this is a good idea because we lost how many men in the Civil War?
32
posted on
07/01/2012 9:14:06 PM PDT
by
slowhandluke
(It's hard to be cynical enough in this age.)
To: leprechaun9
CZAR B.O. and everyone in his adminstration who presented their legal arguments to the court said that the penalty was NOT a TAX.Perhaps after you read this you might change your tune...
@ Brief for Respondents on Severability
6. THE ACT ALSO ESTABLISHES NEW TAX PENALTIES TO BE PAID BY NON-EXEMPTED INDIVIDUALS WHO DO NOT MAINTAIN A MINIMUM LEVEL OF HEALTH COVERAGE FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DEPENDENTS. 26 U.S.C. 5000A.
Sorry about the all caps. I used copy and paste and that's how it came up.
33
posted on
07/01/2012 10:05:13 PM PDT
by
philman_36
(Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
To: centurion316
Sorry about not pinging you as well. See reply 33.
34
posted on
07/01/2012 10:07:13 PM PDT
by
philman_36
(Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
To: editor-surveyor; NoLibZone; All
35
posted on
07/01/2012 10:10:27 PM PDT
by
philman_36
(Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
To: centurion316
During the primaries, Barbara Bush chastised conservatives for considering “compromise” a dirty word.
Compromising with evil only benefits evil.
36
posted on
07/01/2012 10:13:49 PM PDT
by
Rides_A_Red_Horse
(If there is a war on women, the Kennedys are the Spec Ops troops.)
To: Rides_A_Red_Horse
37
posted on
07/01/2012 10:24:52 PM PDT
by
philman_36
(Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
To: philman_36; leprechaun9
CZAR B.O. and everyone in his adminstration who presented their legal arguments to the court said that the penalty was NOT a TAX. Perhaps after you read this you might change your tune...
You don't remember at the time justices asking the attorney for the government how he was going to argue on one day that it was a tax and on another day that it was NOT a tax?
They maintained, because of the anti-injunction matter, that it was not a tax because that would have required the suit to be put off until at least 2014 when the first penalties were assessed. The only reason things proceeded as they did was because it was not considered to be a tax. So either way, they were screwed. So Roberts said, in order to avoid this problem and have his cake and eat it too, the penalty was not a tax for purposes of the anti-injunction issue, but was a tax in order to rescue the law from being unconstitutional on the interstate commerce clause.
38
posted on
07/01/2012 10:37:39 PM PDT
by
aruanan
To: philman_36; leprechaun9
CZAR B.O. and everyone in his adminstration who presented their legal arguments to the court said that the penalty was NOT a TAX. Perhaps after you read this you might change your tune... THE ACT ALSO ESTABLISHES NEW TAX PENALTIES
When you fail to pay a tax to the IRS and they assess you a penalty, that penalty is not a tax.
39
posted on
07/01/2012 10:39:38 PM PDT
by
aruanan
To: aruanan; leprechaun9
leprechaun9 -
CZAR B.O. and everyone in his adminstration who presented their legal arguments to the court said that the penalty was NOT a TAX.Me - Perhaps after you read this you might change your tune... THE ACT ALSO ESTABLISHES NEW TAX PENALTIES
aruanan - When you fail to pay a tax to the IRS and they assess you a penalty, that penalty is not a tax.
I know. Now think about what you just said. The ordering of the individual mandate was, in and of itself, actually the imposition of a tax after all and it was so from the start and the government knew it while lying to everybody about it!
The penalty isn't the tax, as you note, the individual mandate itself is the actual tax the penalty was imposed upon.
Failure to comply with the tax (the individual mandate) triggers the penalty.
40
posted on
07/01/2012 10:52:14 PM PDT
by
philman_36
(Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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