Posted on 07/01/2012 12:16:38 PM PDT by kristinn
Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.
Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold....
But in this closely-watched case, word of Roberts' unusual shift has spread widely within the Court, and is known among law clerks, chambers' aides and secretaries. It also has stirred the ire of the conservative justices, who believed Roberts was standing with them.
After the historic oral arguments in March, the two knowledgeable sources said, Roberts and the four conservatives were poised to strike down at least the individual mandate. There were other issues being argued - severability and the Medicaid extension - but the mandate was the ballgame.
SNIP
It is not known why Roberts changed his view on the mandate and decided to uphold the law. At least one conservative justice tried to get him to explain it, but was unsatisfied with the response, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation.
SNIP
Roberts then engaged in his own lobbying effort - trying to persuade at least Justice Kennedy to join his decision so the Court would appear more united in the case. There was a fair amount of give-and-take with Kennedy and other justices, the sources said. One justice, a source said, described it as "arm-twisting."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Remember too, that Reagan placed a great deal of weight on the opinion of ‘Mr Conservative’ himself, the late Senator Barry Goldwater, who vouched for O’Connor and assured Reagan of her solid conservative instincts. Looks like O’Connor played him too.
>> “Someone got to him and turned him. Plain and simple.” <<
.
Yes, we know that the NYT threat to spill the beans on the “questionable” adoption of his kids probably triggered the insanity, but it still indicates that he is a person of very low moral character.
That AND the other 4 left-wing judicial activists saw no conflict between NFIB v Sebelius and the Commerce clause. Roberts`s opinion on the Commerce clause was his and his alone so it`s dicta.
End result, Wickard v. Filburn wasn`t neutered AND the Govt has new unlimited powers granted to them.
It`s the worst of both worlds. EVERYONE expected Wickard v. Filburn to be spayed and neutered AND for ObamaDeathCare to be struck down in total but the exact opposite happened.
Even the left-wing neo-marxists statists in the White House and capitol hill are stunned by this unexpected result.
Definitely not a picture I’d want to find myself in!
This is why homos were barred from national security positions.
Axlerod probably reintroduced him to an old gay lover, with a clear alternative.
Public humiliation, or a changed vote.
It’s the Chicago Way.
“I’d still rather have Roberts on the Court than the two or three justices the next Presidential term would give Obama a chance to appoint, very likely including Kennedy.”
OK, but to what end? Of the 36 or so judges Romney appointed in Mass, less than 10 were Republican. Of that number, I’m not sure how many qualified as “conservative,” but I doubt it would be many. So what do we really win with a Romney victory, except the predictable defenestration of the conservative wing of the GOP?
Bought off, threatened, honest change of opinion,,,we will never know. Speculation is useless and will only drive people nuts. The fact is we are forever stuck with obamacare. Republicans have been vowing to overturn Roe vs Wade for almost 40 years. It’s just talk. Never going to happen. Same with obamacare. All the conservatives in Congress and the media grabbing their junk and loudly bragging about overturning obamacare is nothing but hot air.
Then I'd say that blackmail works both ways.... Also, if Roberts did this under threat then he is still vulnerable. He might want to think about resigning once Romney is elected.
Not the thread for this type of discussion
I should not have posted
From your link, via the Wayback Machine...
More Grist for the “John Roberts Is Gay” Mill
Ever since President Bush announced his selection of Judge John G. Roberts, Jr., as his Supreme Court nominee, speculation over whether Judge Roberts might be gay has run rampant throughout the blogosphere. See, e.g., Althouse, Law Dork, and Wonkette. UTR readers have also flooded A3G’s inbox with emails citing the following “evidence” that Judge Roberts is gay:
1. Despite being handsome, brilliant, rich, and nice — in other words, prime marriage material — Judge Roberts didn’t get married until the relatively late age of 41.
2. With all due respect to the perfectly attractive Mrs. Jane Sullivan Roberts, some UTR readers — not A3G — have commented that the #5 Superhottie of the Federal Judiciary could have “married someone hotter.” According to a UTR correspondent who used to work at Hogan & Hartson, Judge Roberts’s former law firm, “many of the older [Hogan] attys are married to good-looking 20-somethings after having dumped their first wives.”
3. Judge and Mrs. Roberts have adopted rather than biological children. (The “theory” behind this fact, it seems, is that we therefore have no “proof” of the consummation of the Roberts’ marriage.)
4. Judge Roberts has associated with gay people in the past:
(a) As everyone knows by now, he did pro bono work on behalf of gay rights activists, helping out colleagues in their preparation of court filings and oral argument in Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996).
(b) While Judge Roberts was at Harvard, his pre-law advisor was William LaPiana, a law professor at New York Law School and an openly gay man.
(c) One UTR reader commented that “Roberts has had at least one gay (male) clerk while sitting on the D.C. Cir. I suspect at least one other clerk as well.”
Note: A3G has conducted her own mini-investigation into this claim, and she is uncertain of its accuracy. She has accounted for (almost) all of the nine clerks that Judge Roberts has had during his time on the D.C. Circuit, and the clerks that she knows of are all married to or dating people of the opposite sex, or otherwise not believed to be gay. (But if you have the name, rank and serial number of any Roberts clerk who is openly gay — A3G isn’t interested in outing anyone — please email her.)
Update: It appears that Judge Roberts may have had one gay clerk. At the request of this clerk, however, A3G has deleted a reader comment referring to this clerk by name. Furthermore, she has disabled comments on this post. She thanks you for your consideration.
5. Finally, in terms of evidence of gayness, let’s not leave out the notorious plaid pants.
So there’s certainly some grist for the “Judge Roberts is gay” rumor mill in the nominee’s past (even if much of it is of dubious value). And now, tomorrow’s edition of New York Times will throw more fuel on the fire, in the form of this rather interesting article about Judge Roberts’s time at Harvard and what it was like to be a campus conservative there during the 1970’s.
There are two noteworthy aspects of this article from the “John Roberts Is Gay” point of view. First, check out the provocative third paragraph — surprisingly high placement, essentially part of the lede — of Janny Scott’s piece:
“Conservatives were like the queers on campus,” said Eric Rofes, a classmate of Judge Roberts who later became an organizer on gay issues. “People made fun of them. They mocked them and saw them as jokers or losers. I don’t think in the moment many people realized this was the start of an ascending movement. People felt it was like the last cry of the 1950’s.”
Second, directly to the left of the foregoing paragraph in the online version of the article is a photograph (courtesy Don Scherer) showing Judge Roberts hanging out on Martha’s Vineyard with two handsome male friends, Don Scherer and Richard Lazarus. Call Article Three Groupie crazy — you wouldn’t be the first — but the picture strikes her as pretty “gay-looking.”
If you question A3G’s basis for deeming this picture “gay-looking,” check out the photo for yourself (below right), and then read this (amusingly unhinged) email from a UTR reader:
John Roberts is gay! Look at those smiling buff friends snuggled next to the next Supreme Court Justice on Martha’s Vinyard displaying the groumet meal they just made, and THEY will tell you. Now let’s hope Roberts is actually confirmed before he’s outed like a certain New Jersey Governor! Some legacy for Christian hero W. — seating the first GAY Supreme Court Justice!* This is SO GREAT!
Oy gay! Are we perhaps getting a little carried away with all of our rumor-mongering concerning Judge Roberts’s sexual orientation? After all, the pic was taken on Martha’s Vineyard, not Fire Island. And for the record, Scherer is married, as is Lazarus.
More seriously, all of the “Is John Roberts gay?” speculation strikes A3G as pretty pointless, since it’s doubtful that we’ll ever get a definitive answer to the question. It’s highly unlikely that Judge Roberts will show up in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 6 and declare, “I am a gay American.” We can hazard all sorts of guesses about Judge Roberts’s tastes and proclivities, but we’ll never know for sure.
To sum things up, as A3G previously stated, “Is Judge John Roberts gay? Hmm, who knows?” Unless some new and truly compelling information emerges, let’s just leave it at that. As far as A3G is concerned, the question of Judge Roberts’s possible homosexuality — like the matter of his two adopted kids — should be shoved back into the closet. ‘Nuff said!
Update: Professor Althouse, despite being on vacation, had some interesting and funny comments to offer on the Times piece. A3G is inclined to agree with her: a good case can be made that the NYT is deliberately making Judge Roberts look gay. And yet, as Professor Althouse notes, “the deniability is intact as ever. It’s just three men with a pie... and a mustache... and a glow.”
* Uh, who ever said that Judge Roberts — if he is in fact gay, and if he is ultimately confirmed to the Court — would be the first gay justice? Certainly not Wonkette: “Okay, serious now: We don’t actually think Roberts is gay. We totally wish he was, though! Someone needs to keep Souter company.”
And Wonkette may not be alone in her suspicions concerning the #4 Superhottie of the Federal Judiciary. Check out the Oyez biography of Justice Souter, which describes him as “[a] man of unusual and peculiar sensibilities.” What exactly does this mean — is that what they’re calling them these days? (It’s a bit of a mouthful; A3G prefers the more pithy “friend of Judge Wardlaw.”)
Speaking of Justice Souter, A3G is looking forward to the publication next month of David Hackett Souter, an in-depth biography of the justice by the prolific Professor Tinsley E. Yarbrough. The book will reflect Professor Yarbrough’s extensive research into Justice Souter’s professional and personal background. A3G sincerely hopes that Professor Yarbrough, just because he’s a respectable academic, won’t shy away from answering the questions that enquiring minds want to know...
August 20, 2005 at 11:54 PM in Public Figures, Private Lives: Life Beyond the Courthouse, Report from the Front Lines: Judicial Nomination Warfare, UTR News and Views | Permalink
Unless they were British.
Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess, the Burgess of Burgess and MacLean's infamous flight to Moscow after being tipped off by 'Kim' Philby that they were under investigation. Burgess was one of the Cambridge Four recruited by homosexual Anthony Blunt, a talent spotter for the KGB.
Burgess was blatantly and outrageous open about his deviancy both at home in the UK and while stationed in Washington DC. While the older Blunt claimed not to have had a sexual relationship with Burgess, the KGB had established a section know as "The Sparrow School" for the explicit purpose of using any and all kinds of sex to entrap targets into spying for the USSR.
Amusing side note: Google search revealed a private investigative firm called Burgess MacLean. Discretion no doubt guaranteed. Real or just a clever CIA front, or even FSB joke. ;>)
No argument from me there. Romney without a Republican House and Senate is almost as bad as Obama. If we don’t get a Republican Senate out of this , though, I’ll be surprised. Every Democrat Senator will have to answer why they voted for the biggest tax increase in history. From what I saw this AM on the shows, they know they are in trouble.
Burgess MaClean could be an old family name. Probably a dozen of them around.
“I doubt you ever had your childrens’ lives put at risk.”
“Well little do you know, nor am I going to tell you the specifics, but there were powerful people involved. I suggest you do a little research on me before replying because I am not going to go into public details.”
Carry Okie: “Habitat Restoration, Engineer, Author, Teacher, Parent”
That doesn’t sound very dangerous. How am I going to do research on you?
Roberts (as well as other eligibility judges) have made some moves that are blatantly unethical. The timing and deliberate visibility of those moves immediately caused people at the time to cry foul. I believe those moves may have been red flags so that people WOULD cry foul. I believe the judges ruled as they did because they were threatened, but they wanted to give some sign to the public that what they did was under duress.
I believe that also explains why Dick Cheney never asked for objections to the electoral count, as required by law. Cheney gave the appearance of lawfulness, as he had been threatened into doing, but he stood his ground enough to make sure that Obama was never LAWFULLY declared the President elect.
Roberts did the same thing with the oath of office. I believe he deliberately screwed up the oath in public and then only did the “fixed” oath in private, with no videotape to prove that the oath was ever lawfully taken. Roberts gave the appearance of a lawful oath without necessarily ever actually administering a lawful oath. All the Soros people care about is the appearance, because anybody who would make a legal challenge to the appearances would be thwarted by the judiciary.
Obama was not lawfully declared the electoral winner. There is no hard proof that Obama ever took the lawful oath - which he couldn’t actually do without lawfully being the electoral winner anyway. One of the justices - Stevens? - called Joe Biden “Mr. President” after administering his oath of office. That may have been deliberate as well.
So anyway, I suspect that these major players were threatened into going along with the appearance of things being done lawfully but tweaked their response in such a way that they either gave the appearance of wrong-doing to let people know they were acting under duress, or actually kept the lawful process from happening, in the hopes that America would get out from under the threats and have legal grounds to undo all the damage.
We know that physical threats were used against Bill and Hillary - after Bill Gwatney and Stephanie Tubbs were each killed right after agreeing to present the challenge to Obama’s eligibility at the 2008 Democratic Convention. We know that threats were made to the media heads - which were said to be threats of FCC/FTC annihilation after the election if the media reported on Obama’s eligibility problem, but which would be a vain threat unless there was some other way that Soros could ensure Obama’s election even if the threats were reported to Bush’s DOJ. So the real threat there had to be some harm that didn’t depend on the election. Nobody cares about Roger Ailes’ sex life so it couldn’t have been something like that. Same thing with Cheney. Jerry Corsi says the Kenyan government told GW Bush that Obama’s Kenyan birth records had been destroyed. And nobody’s been able to make any dirt against GW stick so silencing him and stopping his DOJ wasn’t by personal threats. We do know somebody was able to scare the crap out of GW Bush by getting him to believe that we would have Armageddon if TARP wasn’t passed. Bush was saying the world as we know it was going to end if TARP wasn’t passed. TARP was a drop in the bucket of toxic assets; it wasn’t because TARP would build such confidence, that GW was so desperate to have it passed. There was something else pushing him, and he was legitimately SCARED.
I believe the threat was that Soros and his communist-Islamist buddies would make another run on the bank like the one they made in Sept of 2008. That was basically a dry run economic terrorist attack - which showed that the communist-Islamist alliance had the power to destroy the US economy (in a plan that Soros had actually presented to both Hillary and Obama in the 2008 primary and only Obama was OK with Soros’ plans to destroy the US economy - this according to top dem operatives who told Bettina Viviano about it). Having illustrated that power, Soros used the threat of immediate economic collapse as a threat in order to get Obama elected. If martial law had happened under Bush it would be a totally different ballgame than martial law under Obama; the timing was critical. And Soros STILL has the ability to cause an economic collapse whenever he wants; Congress has done nothing to eliminate the threat of economic terrorism. The failure of the democrat Congress to pass a budget has kept the US spending at emergency levels and has contributed to crippling uncertainty that’s kept the US from recovering economically - which is an essential part of Soros’ plan, because if the US recovered it would reduce the communist-Islamist alliance’s ability to send the US economy over the cliff. If that threat was gone, people like John Roberts, John Boehner, the eligibility judges, etc could come forward with their stories and America could go back to being America.
Does that make clear what I meant?
I don’t know what “posters” have said, but I do know what the SCOTUS opinion said:
“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. Congress already possesses expansive power to regulate what people do. Upholding the Affordable Care Act under the Commerce Clause would give Congress the same license to regulate what people do not do. The Framers knew the difference between doing something and doing nothing. They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it. Ignoring that distinction would undermine the principle that the Federal Government is a government of limited andenumerated powers. The individual mandate thus cannot be sustained under Congress’s power to ‘regulate Commerce.’ “
You are most welcome to disagree, but in my book that’s slapping down a fradulent use of the Commerce Clause, and I appreciate it.
I don’t see that quote; I did read the entire opinion. If you could copy and paste the paragraph it would be helpful.
Not all the 5 Justices slapped it down so it is not binding
Search the threads something about dicta
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.