I’m not going to critique the whole thing — you’re free to do so, just as you’re free to agree with the arguments on offer — though I will say generally that what I want in a SCOTUS Justice is not a new Daddy or Mommy. I don’t need life lessons. I don’t want someone who crusades for “social justice.” I don’t need tough love. I don’t need — and we shouldn’t have — philosopher kings doling out correctives to the masses who are in essence free to self-govern just so long as they’re reaching the proper conclusions.
Having said that, let me just briefly respond to one assertion made early in the piece. Writes Bookworm:
Having had more than 24 hours to come to terms with the decision, I’m beginning to think that there may indeed be a pony (or several ponies) hiding in there somewhere. Moreover, I’m also realizing that Roberts, despite the apparent wackiness of his decision, stayed true to his constitutional roots.
No. An originalist doesn’t find a tax in what he knows to be a penalty just because “one can read it as a tax.” For one to read it as a tax when one knows it was never intended as a tax and that it wasn’t voted on as a tax is for one to re-write it as a tax himself — that is, to engage in the kind of judicial activism that is antithetical to the methods of interpretation originalism depends upon.
So John Roberts didn’t stay true to his constitutionalist roots in that fundamental, foundational respect, and the methodology he used in his “reasoning” — in addition to showing that he reasoned backward from the conclusion he wanted to reach — is linguistically incoherent and inherently tyrannical.
That’s it. No ponies. Just more unicorns.
john roberts harvard trained coward
might be fun to tax harvard’s endowment for fun and games thanks to cj roberts.
I had to stop discussing this decision with my husband who is under the delusion that this was the cleverest of ploys by CJ Roberts. I’ll bring him around eventually.
Try this: why the supergenius ploy, when all he needed do was join the dissenters to form the majority? What’s the constitutional — not political, but constitutional — upside?
Anyone?
….Bueller?
I am looking forward to the time corpses created by the Affordable Care Act are provided as one’s meat ration via food stamps.
– All this specious parsing of he did this, and he did that, is flyshit in the pepper, grasping for any tiny straw they can find to turn shit into gold.
– The man personally rewrote a piece of legislature as a sitting judge, and does not seem to see the breach of trust in that. Thats all you need to parse, period.
– Such an act is completely outside his paygrade.
Yeah, Roberts is SO clever that the White House is doing a full court press to the public that it is NOT a “tax” but a penalty!
I’m not sure, but this sounds like the same genius chess moves that gave us Social Security.
Huh, now that I think of it, isn’t SS the president for this idea? That the people weren’t securing their own retirement, so the government took the responsibility from the people?
Of course it goes without saying this particular legislation has been sckeezy from start to finish, procedure wise, but other than scale, thinking of first principles alone, what’s the difference?
– And thats the one and only aspect of it that I think can bite Bummblefuck on the ass, and the Senate along with him.
Let me put it more succinctly: his “salvaging” was to rewrite the thing and pretend it wasn’t what he knew it to be. To help us see the error of our ways.
Ends justify the means. Meaning belongs to the receiver of the message, not its producer. Originalism!
Yet another high-brow attempt at being the most clever apologist in the stack. I’ll pass.
“Yeah, Roberts is SO clever that the White House is doing a full court press to the public that it is NOT a “tax” but a penalty!”
Though I don’t especially like to repeat myself, I still believe CJ Roberts can simply finish the job he’s started — burning down the Court’s reputation — go whole hog, make a big name for himself: Just come out and declare “Hey, we all make mistakes and I made a big one! I join with my fellow justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito to reconsider our Sebelius decision.” Call the case, agree with the White House that the mandate is not a tax but a penalty, therefore, reach the 5-4 decision the entire ACA is struck down. Presto, instant all time fame.
It’s only a tax for purposes of judicial review folks. Rest assured that, as far as you’re concerned, it’s a penalty which hardly anyone at all will have to pay.
Until they do.
What’s the constitutional — not political, but constitutional — upside?
Yeah, I tried that and will try again tomorrow. He reads too much National Review and other ‘reasonable’ types. I’ll keep you posted.
why the supergenius ploy, when all he needed do was join the dissenters to form the majority? What’s the constitutional — not political, but constitutional — upside?
Duh. Plain as the nose on Pinocchio’s face. Look, fellas. It’s beyond doubt. Roberts wanted ACA to be constitutional, no matter what anyone thought. He had a wide avenue to join the dissenters on solid constitutional ground to axe the whole nightmare. Why not take it? Occam’s razor. He wanted the law to stand, and screw COTUS. So much so that he invented out of whole cloth an excuse to make it legit, using an argument no one had advanced and in fact had been explicitly rejected when writing the bloody bill.
Now we have a situation where there is a new, fresh, shiny precedent that says Congress can tax you for literally any reason under the sun… even if the Congress refuses to call it a tax or pass the measure according to rules for passing tax bills. As we know, tax law can be written and routinely is written to target specific individuals, with full constitutional authority and no controversy, (take the few hundred fat cats who were the explicit object and reason for establishing the Alternative Minimum Tax as the first example of many). Now it’s easier than ever to punish people for merely refusing to engage in certain transactions, with no legal recourse. How this is not a close cousin to a bill of attainder, I do not know.
Clever legal minds are already wondering how to use this new and apparently unlimited breadth of taxation powers to prise new monies out of the right citizens to give it to other citizens. Sweet fuckall, why even bother with the fiction of proposing a tax? Just call every new tax a Penalty McMandate, pass it with reconciliation or something, and get SCOTUS to declare it a fully constitutional tax down the road if necessary. That’s the Roberts precedent. If the commerce clause was a keyhole, the new taxation precedent is a garage door with its hinges blown off.
I just want Roberts to answer one question for me. What is being taxed?
it is bush’s fault! said with despair. i agree with the rev. jj: stay out of the bushes.
Then I guess if you voted for Bush, it’s your fault.
It’s my fault. I voted for him twice and sent him money, too.
I admit, I voted for Bush. Sorry.
Still, John Freak’in Kerry!? That dumb ass woulda probably put Hillary on the bench…
Yeah, OK, I voted for him twice. Sorry.
Still, algore!? That meathead woulda probably outlawed cars, and we’d all be riding goats to work.
Admittedly there would probably be work…all those internal combustion engines don’t burn gas for nothing…
– Darleen, heres a first case account of some of the fucked up mess going on behind the scemes that the public, mezmorized as it is by our oh so helpful press, is blissfully umaware of. Bear with me here this takes a bit of telling.
– My oldest son is CEO of a “testing lab” corporation. Late last year they started doing all the DNA overflow work for cash strapped city CIU’s from all over the country, getting paid by insurers to fill in the shortfalls. Then a few months ago the CEO of the major insurer stopped paying for the testing, so they switched over to prostrate and breast cancer proof of patient ID’s/biopsy sample matching, because its been determined that anywhere from 1 to 4% of all such exams are mixed up and falsely reported.
– In one case a hospital sent 4 seperate biopsy samples for 4 different patients. One woman underwent a full mastectomy/uterral,womb removal and found out later they used the wrong biopsy sample and she had not a damn thing wrong with her.
– They wouldn’t check all 3 of the remaining samples at once because: Their legal department said it would leave them open to all 4 patients suing, so they did one at a time, and eventually NOT ONE of the four was a match.
– The next thing that happened is the Medicare insurer stopped paying for the matching tests (they have a technique to do DNA swabs to match the biopsy to the patient to obtain 100% security) claiming that the tests fell under the heading of “quality control”, a total legal dodge.
– My sons company, as it happens, has some sort of in with the Chief surgeon of the Medicare board, and they are meeting to resolve this bullshit soon. This is the sort of crap that is going to just grow and grow as the government gets more and more involved in the countries health care industry.
– It is also industry knowledge that the insurers are all poised to increase costs at least by 20%, and possibly as high as 35% in some cases, as soon as they can from fear that Congress will shortly impose cost ceilings behind the scenes through limiyed Medicare reinbursements.
– The nightmare continues like a run-away frieght train with Bummblefuck at the throttle. These assholes simply do not realize what a massive fucking error they are making.
No ponies? Au contraire, my friend. It’s ponies all the way down!
Only problem is, every single one of them is an inbred clone of Derpy Hooves.
It just occurred to me that the Obamatax is a lot like the jizya.
Then I guess if you voted for Bush, it’s your fault.
i be bad that way. jeffinkay or algore really?
Responding to a question about his summer break, Roberts said he planned to teach a class for two weeks in Malta, the Mediterranean island nation.
“Malta, as you know, is an impregnable island fortress. It seemed like a good idea,” Roberts said,
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/roberts-jokes-trip-impregnable-fortress-16681307#.T-5fdMVvD7s
yea harvard scum bag the tea party was going to do an “#occupything”. effin aholes run this country.
“Malta, as you know, is an impregnable island fortress. It seemed like a good idea,” Roberts said,
…whereas the liberties of American citizens are a wide, airy field of cotton candy dainties to be plucked and swallowed by philosopher kings in black robes. It’s a big world.
Martha’s Vineyard is pretty impregnable too when the ferries are not running. But you don’t want to be there when the Secret Service are in town.
Behavior. More specifically, behavior your betters don’t approve of, behavior they think needs (dis)incentivizing if you are to become acceptable to them.
Eat your peas comrade.
Amusing that Roberts chose Malta. The home of the Templars. Another restricted brotherhood with jealously guarded powers, shrouded in an almost mystical secrecy. Like the ruling class on the SCOTUS bench.
What would Reagan do?
We were promised that Roberts was a reliable conservative. Mitt Romney – the architect of state-level Obamacare in Massachusetts – is about to run against Obama on this issue.
I’m a registered Republican, so I can say this. Republicans are fucking stupid. S-T-U-P-I-D. Idiots.
Republican rank and file cannot discern who is conservative and who is not. Who is for limited government and who is not. They vote for statists at every fucking election and primary. S-T-U-P-I-D. Idiots.
Here’s a cattle call for the herd: Romney ain’t getting rid of Obamacare folks. You’ve been duped again. S-T-U-P-I-D. Idiots.
Fun facts about Malta.
Justice Roberts (in)famously declared in a fit of pomposity that the court shouldn’t be in the business of protecting citizens from the consequence of their political decision. Other than the shear mendacity of that statement(he didn’t rule on any law passed by the citizens ortheir representatives) is the fact he feels compelled to cover for congress on it’s bumbling incompetence.
As is known one of the provisions of Obamacare was struck down 7-2. What is also well known is there was no severabilty clause in the law because of the rush to get it passed and that turncoat turd Scott Brown being elected in the interim. This should have rendered the law null. But The Dread Pirate Roberts in order to cover the asses of his new NDSWP buddies and to keep this monstrosity viable pulled a severabilty clause out of his ass thus saving his ruling class brethren from the the consequences of THEIR (in) actions.
John Yoo rings true.
Bah.
Mark Steyn doesn’t apologize for Chief Justice Roberts. Instead, he eviscerates.
So much for silver linings. We do seem to be shafted, and left bereft of that Constitution thinger. Which, I suppose, proves young Ezra and old Ginsburg correct: the damned thing is just.too.old.
Mark almost always delivers. Send George Will to the glue factory. That horse has done broke down.