Why Roberts Jumped

[cilla4progress]

Scalia is making a mockery of the Court. Roberts wasn't prepared to let that happen. Scalia is willing to take the High Court hostage to his radical right-wing ideology. Roberts could come up with a way to save the Court's reputation - his legacy - and still throw a bone to conservatives: the individiual mandate is a "tax."

[joycejnr]

1. It's hard to come up with an alternative reason! n/t

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Scalia should be the 2nd Impeached

and no judge in the land would argue excepthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase the first impeached .

[antigop]

3. 2 reasons he jumped

1)It was political -- he was afraid of the damage to the GOP in an election year if PPACA was overturned.

2) If PPACA was thrown out, single-payer would be demanded....and the Chamber of Commerce does not want single-payer.

[cilla4progress]

11. Interesting!

[Tx4obama]

4. A good article on the link below

Did Scalia Scare Off Roberts?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/29/scalia.html

[cilla4progress]

12. s'what I'm sayin'!

Yup!

[agent46]

5. That redefinition of "tax" is the real right wing coup here

It redefines what a tax is and opens the door for future privatized government services to legally require payments from the consumer citizenry. Now we privatize the police forces, fire departments and so on and legally "tax" the population by forcing them to pay these new profit centers.

Why is there no discussion of this point? Am I missing some facts? Please let me know, folks.

Liberalism is not on the rebound as long as the Neo-liberal agenda continues apace.

[unblock]

10. the court didn't redefine "tax". it merely recognized that that's what it always was.

it's collected by the irs and paid to the treasury. it's a tax, end of story.

yes, there's also an exemption for various reasons including insufficient income, religious objections, and most famously, purchasing eligible health insurance. but that's no different that many other income tax deductions and credits, e.g., for purchasing qualifying energy-efficient appliances, windows, solar panels, hybrids, daycare services, etc.

the only thing that made it LOOK like it wasn't an tax was that the law was carefully drafted to avoid using the word "tax" for political reasons. but it always was a tax.



i'm amazed that people don't get the simple logic.

"you have to buy this product (unless you pay this money to the government)" is EXACTLY the same as
"you have to pay this money to the government (unless you buy this product)".

one gets called a mandate with an penalty, the other gets called a tax with an exemption, but logically, financially, economically, mathematically, and constitutionally they're exactly the same thing.

[quaker bill]

13. precisely

the way I got the energy efficiency tax credit was to purchase an insulating white roof from a private contractor. Had I not done so, I would have paid the "penalty" of higher taxes, (and continued to pay much higher electric bills).

Going w/o health insurance is also quite expensive. Due to a poorly timed lapse between jobs or perhaps a poorly timed pregnancy, I paid for my daughter's birth on my dime. Due to an emergency c-section, I was making monthly payments on her until she was 8 years old.

[indepat]

6. Chief Justice Roberts still has a very long way to go to save the Court's reputation and

salvage his own legacy imo.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

7. I think Kennedy wanted to come over, too, but was getting a lot

of heat and political pressure. I have a conspiracy theory that Roberts not only had to repair the court's reputation but also wanted to take the heat from Kennedy.

[former9thward]

9. A conspiracy theory indeed.

Kennedy gave the dissent. There is zero evidence he "wanted to come over". What political "heat and political pressure" are you talking about. He is not running for anything.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

14. Of course there's no evidence. I said that it was SPECULATION. You do know what that means, right?

Last edited Sun Jul 1, 2012, 08:31 PM - Edit history (1)

Smart ass comments are unnecessary.

ETA: Looks like I was at least half right...

John Roberts Health Care Decision: Supreme Court Chief Justice Switched Sides, Sources Say

Source: HUFFINGTON POST

Fresh evidence has surfaced regarding suspicions that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts switched his vote on health care reform.

CBS News reports that Roberts initially sided with the court's four conservative members to overturn President Barack Obama's individual mandate. After changing his mind, Roberts fended off a month of efforts to sway him back to the other side, headed by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

"He was relentless," a source told CBS regarding Kennedy's push. "He was very engaged in this."

In addition to private jostling within the Supreme Court, it appears that the public spotlight was a factor. The CBS report points to how Roberts pays attention to media coverage. With his court's reputation on the line, one source suggested that the chief justice became "wobbly" in the eyes of his conservative counterparts.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1641481.html

[zbdent]

8. "Jumped"???

As I understood it, he stood on "legal grounds" ... but wrote 30 pages of "While constitutional, THIS AWFUL PIECE OF LEGISLATION REALLY REALLY REALLY SHOULD BE SHREDDED LIKE THE CONTENTS OF FAWN HALL'S UNDERGARMENTS!" ... just not in those exact terms ...