Maybe ‘Obamacare’ should be renamed ‘Robertscare’ for the justice who went out of his way to save the individual mandate.
The Federalist: In the end, applesauce won over baseball. Fourteen years ago, during Senate hearings regarding his nomination as chief justice of the United States, John Roberts used a baseball metaphor to explain his view of judges’ modest role:
Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire…I will remember that it’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.
On two major cases related to President Obama’s signature health care law, however, Roberts violated his 2005 pledge, wriggling himself into lexicographical contortions to uphold the measure passed by Congress. As his then-colleague Justice Antonin Scalia noted in the second ruling—which posited that the phrase “Exchange established by the state” applied to exchanges not established by states—upholding Obamacare caused Roberts to embrace “pure applesauce.”
Political Flip-Flop
A forthcoming book by reporter Joan Biskupic, who has covered the Supreme Court for decades, goes into detail on Roberts’ first defense of the health-care law—his ruling in the 2012 case of Nation Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. In a book review for The Atlantic, Michael O’Donnell includes the following precis of Biskupic’s reporting:
She writes that he initially voted with the four other conservatives to strike down the ACA, on the grounds that it went beyond Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. Likewise, he initially voted to uphold the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid. But Roberts, who kept the opinion for himself to write, soon developed second thoughts.
Biskupic, who interviewed many of the justices for this book, including her subject, writes that Roberts said he felt ‘torn between his heart and his head.’ He harbored strong views on the limitations of congressional power, but hesitated to interject the Court into the ongoing health-insurance crisis. After trying unsuccessfully to find a middle way with Kennedy, who was ‘unusually firm’ and even ‘put off’ by the courtship, Roberts turned to the Court’s two moderate liberals, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. The threesome negotiated a compromise decision that upheld the ACA’s individual mandate under Congress’s taxing power, while striking down the Medicaid expansion.
On the day of the ruling in June 2012, Chris Cillizza, then writing for The Washington Post, claimed that Roberts’ opinion “made good on his pledge to referee the game, not play it.” But the story Biskupic tells, which confirms prior reporting by Jan Crawford published shortly after the ruling, contradicts Cillizza’s view entirely. Roberts’ entire approach to the case consisted of playing games—and highly political ones at that. keep reading
Every once in a while, I read an opinion by this Cillizza jerk. He’s a weenie liberal Trump-hater of the first magnitude.
He’ll be remembered as a traitorous piece of shit.
Robert’s turned his back on the American people, and the constitution. I’ll never forgive him.
Can SC members be impeached or removed. His oath requires him to rule on the law. Not politics. If not, someone needs to invite him to a hunting lodge/resort for a overnight stay.
His head and his heart.
Hey duffus, your job is to ignore your heart an use your head.
Like the umpire you so admire..
I wonder who found J. Robert’s collection of kiddie porn snuff flicks??
Slightly off topic, but still Supreme Court. Yesterday a decision involving Louisiana abortion laws was announced and it was a 5-4 decision. How did Ruth Buzzi Ginsberg cast her vote? Can’t we require that RBG prove that she is alive?
I hope this book means he’s leaving. That would make 4 appointments for DJT. And quite possible save the Republic.
Joe6
I think it’s time that we demand proof of life.
Fuck that commie bitch!
Roberts is the new Kennedy, thinking he is Solomon who needs to always split the baby.
I can stomach whatever socialist crap the left wants to concoct as long as Amy Coney Barrett gets to replace RBG. But it has to be this year.
Another Bush appointed traitor. This is my shocked face.
Roberts got put through the ringer during his hearing by Schumer and Ted Kennedy.
And here he is now – writing laws out of thin air to support the most far left positions possible over manufactured “crisis” of health insurance. Sure! Yea, the Constitution allows the government to force people to buy a product that costs $6,000 a year and then another $6,000 for the deductible per person or they can fine you more money you don’t have and send you to jail. Because regulating interstate commerce actually means regulating non-commerce.
He just wipes his ass on the 10th Amendment and then tells us to salute it. And now he’s supporting child murder in the interest of fairness. Shuffle Ginsburg’s coil and let Thomas retire and Roberts can let Kagan and Sotomayer peg him to death like in his fantasies.
FOAD.
No sh!t that he sold out the Constitution and his honor. No need to read his book. He does not deserve a dime. We know his crimes.
There must be pictures of him with little boys or something equally horrible for him to be such a sh!t-weasel.
Remember that God allows people into positions of power and he also will judge them on their use of it. This should terrify all Democrats who regularly abuse their positions with their support for murder by abortion. I look forward to Judgment Day for them to get theirs!
Just looked at the picture and noted that the three “wymen” on the SC are all very short in stature (and I don’t just mean their height, but also their lack of intellect).
Don’t forget the prick also was the deciding vote aligning himself with the liberal justices overturning Louisiana’s abortion law.
“To protect the Constitution from all enemies…foreign and domestic”
Let’s get real. Roberts and Kavanagh are Deep State tools. President Trump needs to take a sharp right when nominating the next justices, or we’ll be overrun by anti-American rulings. Sick and tired of the insidious sabotage by the left of the Judicial branch.
I woke up this morning at 4:00 AM, and turned on the tube, actually the flat panel, which China stole that PVD Tech too. Where was I? Oh yea, turned on the teli and my favorite patriotic awesome mini series was on consecutively, Sons of Liberty. If there’s readers here that haven’t watched this yet, I’ll track you down with my rubber chicken. It will leave you pissed as hell. But in reality it frames what’s going on in the country perfectly. Watch it.
Bad_Brad, just bought a copy of “Sons of Liberty”. Can’t wait to watch it when it arrives.
99th
It should be required viewing by everyone in the country. Twice a year. If you’re like me you learned all the important names and events. But this ties everything together. It also sheds some pretty good light on who these men were. Being a strong Constitutionalist and a want to be free man, I cant recommend it enough.
Gotta hunch Roberts is being blackmailed. Sure as hell can’t go to the FBI! Willing to bet he pays attention to Clinton body count.
He is an abject disgrace. Thinks he is God’s gift if my inclination that he is compromised and the Chicago Democrat machine doesn’t have the goods on him and doesn’t own him is a wrong read on how the dirty deed went down.
I still go with the latter and believe this to be a false flag. I believe he has something in his past that he wants desperately to take to the grave with him.
May ginsberg drop dead on top of him – at the foot of a steep staircase.
Then hang what’s left by his tiny balls
A Constitutional Quisling who
deserves only contempt as do
the vile communists who destroyed
our health care system.
When the house returns to sanity Roberts should be the subject of a scj impeachment experiment.
That Roberts character stabbed us all in the back. He has to be scared of something. Maybe a Bezos situation with Mad Maxine.