The Vindication of John Roberts

American Thinker ^ | 11/19/2014 | Gene Schwimmer

[Servant of the Cross]

At the time of this writing, six “Gruber videos” have been released and “gone viral,” as they say in YouTube land. These are the videos of course, in which “Obamacare architect” Jonathan Gruber lets the cat out of the bag on the process of enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, aka The Greatest Consumer Fraud Perpetrated on the American People, Ever.

Of the many Gruber quotes burning up the internet, I was especially struck by this one, to which Charles Krauthammer refers in a recent article:

Gruber said, the bill’s authors manipulated the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which issues gold-standard cost estimates of any legislative proposal: “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.” Why? Because “if CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” And yet, the president himself openly insisted that the individual mandate – what you must pay the government if you fail to buy health insurance – was not a tax.

Obviously, writing a bill “in a tortured way” to prevent scoring the individual mandate as a tax is to admit that the individual mandate is, in fact, a tax.

But the Gruber did something else, too, which was to trigger a memory of another, earlier quote (emphasis mine, citation omitted):

In answering that constitutional question [of whether the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is a tax], this Court follows a functional approach, “[d]isregarding the designation of the exaction, and viewing its substance and application.”

Such an analysis suggests that the shared responsibility payment [i.e.¸ the individual mandate] may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax.

[Servant of the Cross]

Donning the flame suit.

[newfreep]

Than just repeal this “tax”....

[C. Edmund Wright]

I hated this article - queasy thesis, wrong conclusion. He connected some dots correctly, but whiffed on a bunch.

[fhayek]

Bam-bam will just veto that.

[Kozak]

If in fact it’s a tax, and the bill originated in the Senate, then it’s unconstitutional.

[Dr. Sivana]

Even if it IS a tax, you can’t be taxed for breathing. No “vindication” for a bad decision.

[demshateGod]

Gene Schwimmer and John Roberts are both Rat Dhimmis. The legislation was not a tax and is not a tax.

[Liz]

Clearly---Gruber was handed the Marxist dream plan FIRST. Then Obama bribed money-hungry Gruber w/ $400,000 hefty tax dollars to invent a healthcare model so that he, and lock-stepping Dems, could sell it to gullible Americans.

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THE GOVT CONSPIRACY UP-CLOSE:

<><> At a July 23, 2009 town hall, Obama described the healthcare conspiracy thusly----he explained that the "Cadillac tax" (invented by Gruber) was intended to target health plans that spend unnecessarily and excessively, thus driving up health care costs (such as the $25,000 healthcare union benefit).... "that's a lot more expensive and a lot fancier than the one that even members of Congress get, " Marxist Obama griped.....rushing to the defense of Big Govt.

<><> By 2018, the colluders had decided to switch gears----lock-stepper Gruber was saying just the opposite. That those who object to the Cadillac tax (those dratted Republicans) will be obligated to figure out how to come up with the trillion dollars that repealing the tax will take from the U.S. Treasury, or risk significantly adding to the national debt....exactly what Obama told voters in 2009 he had "taken off the table."....

================================================

REALITY CHECK: The Cadillac tax was part of the Obama/Gruber/Big Govt conspiracy designed: (1) to destroy insurance companies......targets of Progressive unending hatred, and, (2) to deny end-of-life care to the elderly......deplored by Progressive Marxists.

===========================================

Progressive Democrat Gruber achieved every single one of the odious Marxist dicta. The preening, duplicitous Gruber---the embodiment of cockamamie far-left thinking---believed it was his moral duty to lie, deceive and collude w/ the US govt......so that these revolting ideas could be imposed on "sub-mental defectives' taking up valuable space in their Utopian America.

Loyal foot-soldier Gruber, in obeisance to the Marxist dream, invented mechanisms to serve Obama's Marxist obsession w/ wealth transfer---as candidate Obama told Joe the Plumber---his plan was to redistribute the wealth:

(1) throwing Americans off affordable health plans
while assuring them they could "keep their plans,"

(2) nationalizing 1/6 of the US economy,

3) installing IPAB's (healthcare rationing),

(4) decimating intergenerational transfers of wealth a longtime Progressive bugaboo;
via Obamacare, grandma/pa's holdings go to the govt---not to you,

(5) pulling $750 billion out of Medicare (another Progressive irritant---giving the elderly healthcare),

(6) drug-rationing---death panels,

(8) outright abandoning seniors and the chronically ill,

(9) transferring wealth from healthy young Americans to subsidize healthcare for others.

Obama organized Democrats into a high-stepping cheerleading squad to force the Progressive Poison down the throats of recalcitrant Americans.

=============================================

Vladimir Lenin / 1945 pamphlet

“Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.”

[newfreep]

Exactly....so the GOP nominee MUST win 2016 election - it’s our last hope.

That said, amnesty for 40 MILLION ILLEGAL INVADERS who will ALWAYS vote for leftwing communists/socialists would also destroy America.

I think the Constitution is close to getting screwed with either of these scenarios.

[Servant of the Cross]

< intellect on; emotion off>

If SCOTUS had declared 0bamcare Unconstitutional in June 2012, hell would have been unleashed by the media and democRATS 24/7. The Left's base would have been energized beyond belief, literally frothing at the mouth. It would have been Citizens United on steroids ... (visual aid below)

And we would not have had the following events occur ....

* a TRAINWRECK of a website launch
* a vindication of religious freedom and the First Amendment in Hobby Lobby
* the REALITY of this piece of legislative garbage was neither Affordable nor Caring (DEATH PANELS)
* a running parody of the "if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan ...."
etc. etc.

THIS WAY, the completely unConstitutional and unAmerican piece of garbage collapsed of its own making. The people saw it for the lies that it was and its proponents as the liars they are.

If it had been declared dead by SCOTUS in 2012, the liberal left would have made it a rallying cry and a cause for which they would die for. It would have been like the Roe v Wade decision, a never ending battle.

By allowing it to survive a very temporary Constitutional challenge in 2012, the Dread Pirate John Roberts truly put a stake in its heart forever.

[Old Sarge]

How does this “vindicate” Roberts?

The fact is, Roberts declared an unconstitutional tax (the Jizyah) as law of the land - because the Chicago Way priomised his kids would be deported if he didn’t.

[9YearLurker]

If it was, for Constitutional purposes a tax, then the bill needed to have originated in the House in order to be Constitutional.

My recollection is that it wasn’t.

[Triple]

Exactly!

ACA is a tax - therefore it is a nullity.

[Iron Munro]

In the first Obamacare decision, Roberts folded up for Obama like a $2.00 yard sale lawn chair.

The smart money says he will do it again.

After all - Obama and Holder still have the blackmail evidence and aren’t afraid to use it.

[Old Sarge]

Exactly.

[Travis McGee]

[pgyanke]

To be a tax or not to be a tax is not the biggest issue. John Roberts agreed that the Federal Government has the authority to compel free citizens to enter into private contracts. That is the bigger picture everyone ignores.

[Jacquerie]

The Chief Justice of the United States rewrote a congressional statute. He usurped Article I Section 1.

I understand you think the results are swell. That is irrelevant.

[originalbuckeye]

IIRC, The Senate took a Bill that had originated in the House, took every word out of THAT Bill, and inserted the wording for Obamacare. In that manner, the Bill has a House designation even though ‘written’ completely by the Senate. ALSO, during oral arguments, Kagan kept saying ‘why are you calling it a tax? It isn’t a tax’. Total sleaze by the power crazy Democrats in the White House, the Congress and the SCOTUS. Roberts should have stayed the course on protecting the Constitution and the country........I do wonder what the Evil Ones have on him. He sold his soul and is still the Chief Justice.

[dfwgator]

So? He still voted for it. The rest is irrelevant.