Chief Justice Roberts decision that of Washington Insider, John Roberts in DC too long, John Hammer Rhino Times, Greensboro Obamacare truth in print

“Nobody who makes under $200,000 a year will see their taxes go up as long as I’m president.”…Barack Obama

“I absolutely reject that notion [mandate is a tax].”…Barack Obama

“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity
expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.”…Marbury vs Madison

From John Hammer of the Rhino Times, in print in Greensboro, NC, July 5, 2012.

“Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Roberts threw everybody for a loop last week.

Both Fox and CNN reported on the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare wrong the first time around. Which is understandable because days later pundits are still trying to make sense of what happened.

One of my favorite pieces so far is by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, who, of course, praises Roberts for putting his country above partisan politics by using creativity and “finding a way to greenlight Obama’s Affordable Care Act.”

Friedman credits Roberts with putting partisan politics aside and doing what was best for the country. It is such an arrogant, closed-minded liberal world view it would be funny if it weren’t such a serious issue. Shoot, it is funny. According to Friedman the liberal view is what is best for the country. This is a fact. So Roberts is to be congratulated for putting his conservative ideals, which are by definition bad for the country, aside and figuring out a way to twist the law into a pretzel that says Obamacare is constitutional. To believe Friedman you have to accept his premise that what conservatives believe is not and cannot be good for the country, and when conservatives can put aside their own beliefs they can sometimes manage to work for the good of the country. You either have to laugh or cry. I choose laughing.

Here’s an explanation I haven’t read anywhere, but it seems possible. The problem is that Roberts has spent too much time in Washington. People talk about getting inside-the-Beltway syndrome, and maybe Roberts has been in Washington for so long he believes that the extreme left-wing views that dominate Washington are the norm for the nation. Or he doesn’t believe it, but like living in a town with a paper mill, after a while you think stench is normal. It’s tough for conservatives living in Washington because it doesn’t matter how big a majority the Republicans have in Congress, in Washington conservatives are a tiny minority of the population that usually dash to Capital Hill and then back to Reagan National Airport and somewhere more normal.

Maybe Roberts has been in Washington so long, he believes that the opinions you hear in restaurants, coffee shops and on the metro are the norm. Of course, it’s hard to imagine Roberts in a coffee shop or on the metro, but it could happen.

Look at President George Walker Bush. He was convinced that people wouldn’t be that upset about a tax increase. It’s hard for a president to get out and mingle, but he should have been told that the rest of the country didn’t like the idea of a tax increase from a president who had been in every corner of the country saying, “read my lips, no new taxes.” In Washington, it was considered par for the course. There are politicians everywhere in Washington and nobody except someone straight in from the countryside believes anything they say. The voters in Washington elected Marion Barry after he had been convicted of possession of cocaine. It’s a different world.

On the good side of the Roberts’ judicial reasoning is that it has now been established without a doubt that Obamacare is being paid for with a tax. It is also definitely a tax on the middle class, and President Barack Hussein Obama has promised over and over he would not raise taxes on the middle class. According to some estimates this represents by far the largest tax increase in history and will result in over $1 trillion in new taxes.

Imagine how much more power it gives to the federal government to take an additional $1 trillion out of the private economy and decide where and how it will be spent.

The other parts of the ruling really are good news. Finally there is some check on the federal government forcing the states to do whatever it wants by withholding funds. The federal government might have to use reason or compromise in the future. One state legislator has told me that North Carolina won’t be able to afford the new Medicaid provisions, and North Carolina is not alone.

One of the most interesting articles to come out of the Supreme Court decision is by Jan Crawford of CBS News, who evidently has great sources inside the Supreme Court. She reports that Justice Anthony Kennedy was relentless in his pursuit of Roberts, attempting to get Roberts back in the conservative fold.

Those on the outside had figured that Kennedy would be the conservative judge to vote with the liberals, but according to this report, which seems to be generally accepted as true, Kennedy was the one who wouldn’t accept the fact that Roberts had changed sides.

Here is another theory about Roberts. This was his one attempt at being a wild and crazy guy. Some men have a midlife crisis and go after younger women and some buy a red convertible. Perhaps some very conservative chief justices of the Supreme Court who, from reading their bios, never really did anything fun in their lives, decide to try something “Crazy, man, crazy” and vote with the liberals on a big case.

Human beings are very strange creatures and anything is possible.”

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http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/Articles-Columns-c-2012-07-03-212390.112113-Under-the-Hammer.html