“I, John Glover Roberts, do solemnly swear to hoist the American people on the petard of fraud, obfuscate the Truth, adjudge illegalities just, and rend asunder the Constitution of the United States, so help me Barry.” (caption submitted by “anonymous” to LMAObama.com, a great site to visit)
The implications of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) majority opinion regarding “Obamacare” are impossible for us to summarize in an essay or two, or three, or three hundred. The decision is fresh enough that we find new compelling erudite analysis at every twice daily glimpse at blogs and Web sites.
It is overwhelming really but we will try to be helpful by setting forth some links to articles, quotes, and our own commentary with the hope of serving as a collection point for argumentation and analysis for Quad Cities area Republicans to use in fighting the good fight.
Any pretense to have all of the best in one spot would be just that, pretense. Nevertheless we will embark on this compelling project and continue with periodic postings. The collection will be readily available as a new category accessible at right. Visit: Obamacare: Constitutional & Political Aspects After SCOTUS Decision.
The first in this series, categorized at right, is:
Does The Choom Gang* Have Us By The SCOTUS?
Consider it as “Brief # 1”
Brief # 2
From Ben Shapiro, columnist and Harvard Law grad: Essentially, the Obamacare decision said that the federal government can force you to do anything. They don’t have to tax behavior. They can tax nonbehavior. They can tell you to do virtually anything they want; they can tax you unless you buy the right foods, listen to the right music and/or engage in the right type of work. If you refuse to pay the tax, they can jail you. The Obamacare decision destroys the basic concept of American liberty: freedom to live as you choose without interference by the federal government, so long as you don’t affect the lives of others. Now the government can penalize you in the privacy of your own home for failing to do as they say.
Like other nasty Supreme Court decisions of the past, this one was made based not on the Constitution, but on the political predilections of the judges. Read the entire column here.
And this via the Wall Street Journal’s, Best of the Web: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/07/09/120709taco_talk_toobin:
Not surprisingly, The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin is happy with the result of last week’s ObamaCare decision. But Toobin is sufficiently knowledgeable about the law to find fault with its logic:
“In the end, of course, [Chief Justice John] Roberts did uphold [ObamaCare] as an exercise of the constitutional power to tax. Frankly, that argument is not a persuasive one. As the conservative Justices wrote in their joint dissenting opinion, taxes are enforced contributions to support a government; penalties are punishments for unlawful acts. The individual mandate is clearly designed to induce the purchase of insurance, and the only people who have to pay the fees are the ones who refuse to go along. That sounds a lot like a penalty. But it was good enough for Roberts, and it led to the correct result. Any port will do in a constitutional storm.” Read the entire column here.
And rounding out this collection is a referral from out resident crank and senior associate editor Don Holmes regarding especially the “internal politics” of the decision.
Readers: This article by Jason Pollak writing in Breitbart.com, says my position better than I can. (editors note: Don referred to the “Roberts Doctrine of Judicial Capitulation” before this article appeared and was not seen elsewhere). As the day has progressed, I’m seeing more and more conservatives expressing their disgust with Roberts. I’m betting George Will and Charles Krauthammer privately wish they had given the decision a bit more thought before jumping out to declare it the most intelligent strategy they’ve ever seen. DLH
From the Pollak article: But the latest capitulation, by Chief Justice John Roberts–whose nomination then-Senator Obama opposed in 2005–has taken conservatives by surprise, not least because his reasoning in his Obamacare opinion is so shoddy. It was widely expected that Roberts would oppose using the Commerce Clause to allow Congress to do whatever it wanted, but entirely unexpected that Roberts would give the same effective power to Congress through its taxing power, when the Obamacare legislation never invoked that power or even the word “tax.”
Some conservatives, seeking a silver lining, hailed Roberts for limiting future abuses of the Commerce Clause. But, taken with Roberts’s surprising decision to join the majority earlier in the week in striking down much of Arizona’s immigration law, it seems that Roberts’s ruling on Obamacare is part of a broader political gesture. Roberts succumbed to Obama’s political bullying–ostensibly to save the Court as an institution. But in doing so, Roberts yielded not only to Obama’s vision of big government, but to the legal left’s idea of judicial review–that it is a tool to be wielded only in defense of the liberal agenda, not in defense of the Constitution. The entire article can be viewed here.
