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The Chief Justice's Gambit (Not as bad as we think??)
Rea Clear Politics ^ | June 27,2012 | Sean Trende

Posted on 06/28/2012 2:37:54 PM PDT by Hojczyk

But I think if you scratch the surface here, Roberts embarked upon a gambit much like Marshall did 200 years ago. For the results-oriented -- which is to say, most observers on both sides who have been ranting about the Constitution for the past few months -- this is a clear win for the Obama administration, at least in the short term. By removing most legal impediments to the implementation of the law, the odds that the president’s signature legislation will eventually be implemented have risen.

1. The law still has a good chance of not being implemented.

2. Doctrinally, The Federalist Society got everything it wanted.

But judicial conservatives who are not just concerned about the outcome got more than they could have reasonably hoped for. Doctrinally speaking, this case will likely be remembered as a watershed decision for conservatives.

Five justices just signaled to lower courts that, but for the unique taxation power argument, they were prepared to rule that a major act of Congress that plainly touched upon economic activity exceeded Congress’ commerce powers. Right now, liberals are seemingly too busy celebrating their win, and conservatives bemoaning their loss, to realize the significance of this.

3. The chief justice has built up some political capital.

Roberts has basically done what John Marshall did: Insulate the court from criticism of bald partisan bias and infidelity to, as he once put it, calling balls and strikes. He’s earning plaudits from the left. Though the right is grumbling, I suspect they won’t be doing so for long

4. This matters in the long run -- a lot.

All told, it is easier for the conservative wing of the court to make some significant rulings in some other policy areas.

(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: obamacaretax
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To: joe fonebone

It’d be great if you were right.

But: It is Justice Thomas who has been calling for a clawback on the Commerce Clause for twenty years now. If this decision was really the opportunity to kill the expansive reading of the Commerce Clause, then why wouldn’t Thomas join in the fun?

So, we are supposed to believe that Alito, Thomas and Scalia are wrong here? And that somehow Roberts seduced the two lesbian justices, the ACLU hag, and Breyer to join into what will eventually kill socialism?

Damn, that would be good. Talk about making lemons out of lemonade, but that just seems far-fetched.

Again, though, we all hope you are right!!!


21 posted on 06/28/2012 2:57:31 PM PDT by ConservativeDude
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To: Drill Thrawl

Good point.


22 posted on 06/28/2012 2:59:18 PM PDT by ConservativeDude
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To: CharacterCounts
Coming Soon to Your State!

Speedy Light Rail Access
to the Much Awaited
Obama-Roberts Health Spas and Seminar Centers

Individual and Family Plans Available


23 posted on 06/28/2012 3:02:12 PM PDT by Covenantor ("Men are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern." Chesterton)
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To: joe fonebone
Wrong.

Roberts has just expanded the power of the Federal government beyond the liberals' wildest dreams. His decision to limit the Commerce Clause is vacuous, because the Commerce Clause is no longer required: his decision finds that absent any specifically enumerated power, or power implied by the common law, the taxing authority of Congress is in and of itself a sufficient justification of the law.

People who actually understand that the Constitution requires Congress to act within its mandate grasped at the Commerce Clause as a desperate straw they could claim for the mandate's justification. Now Roberts has told them that no justification for any law is required, as long as it has tax consequences.

It's not a victory. It can't be twisted into one. It is the most staggering defeat of conservatism and the most vicious betrayal of the Constitution in the history of the Republic.

It would have been FAR BETTER for Roberts' to simply assert that the Commerce Clause obtained. He didn't. It's effectively the end of Constitutional government.

Read the decision tonight, and weep; because America is gone.

24 posted on 06/28/2012 3:02:56 PM PDT by FredZarguna (The justification for a tax cannot be the authority to tax in and of itself.)
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To: Hojczyk

What Roberts facilitated...

Contempt for the SCOTUS
Assurance that some form of government health care is assured
Businesses will dump employee insurance en mass
The populace will mistakenly think it’s okay for the government to be a nanny cradle to grave
The impression that Republicans who oppose government health care are evil

I’m sure I missed a number of other issues, but this is good for starters.

Roberts has no idea how badly this screwed our nation over


25 posted on 06/28/2012 3:03:01 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Remove all Democrats from the Republican party, and we won't have much Left, just a lot of Right.)
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To: Drill Thrawl

hey buddy... news flash..

the congress has always had the power to tax anydanmthing it pleases..

this ruling gave them nothing extra..

It took away their so called right to use the commerce clause any damn way they please..


26 posted on 06/28/2012 3:03:56 PM PDT by joe fonebone (I am the 15%)
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To: joe fonebone
It took away their so called right to use the commerce clause any damn way they please..

BFD, as if that was going to stop them.

27 posted on 06/28/2012 3:05:57 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: throwback
I won't be surprised when Obama wins in November either.

Go sit in a corner and talk to yourself. Nobody wants to hear that.

28 posted on 06/28/2012 3:06:14 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: Hojczyk

I’m just glad they used the word TAX. It has opened some eyes of some people who thought it was free....


29 posted on 06/28/2012 3:06:53 PM PDT by Fawn (DEAR JESUS....PLEASE LET OBAMA LOSE.....AMEN.)
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To: Drill Thrawl

you know the other thing that is troublesome about this “Roberts has a Master Plan” mentality is that no master plan matters now. This was a fundamental dividing point in American history.

The way he mis-reads the Constitution allows for the fundamental transformation into the totalitarian democracy that the left has always wanted. Roberts, of course, would say that he isn’t for that, that he wanted to decide on narrow grounds, blah blah blah...to avoid partisanship blah blah blah...all that amounts to nothing and even the Constitution amounts to nothing when the country itself has been fundamentally altered in how it relates to the federal government.

Its like saying “no” to chemotherapy when your body is riddled with cancer, and saying, “oh, now, I have a wellness plan here in my pocket which includes diet and exercise...and chemo is dangerous anyways”.


30 posted on 06/28/2012 3:07:22 PM PDT by ConservativeDude
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To: Perdogg

“bottomline - Elections matter”

Recent rulings have made it clear. In the eyes of the Supreme Court individuals and states are now subservient to the power of the federal government. Equally clear is the fact that the USSC can’t save us from our stupidity. Its up to us now. We have one more chance. Let’s get ready to rumble.


31 posted on 06/28/2012 3:07:38 PM PDT by Starboard
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To: Hojczyk
 

In 1803, the chief justice of the United States had a problem. His hated cousin, Thomas Jefferson, had won the last presidential election. But the outgoing Federalists opted not go gentle into that good night. The one branch of government they controlled was the judiciary, and they meant to keep it. They had passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which allowed for several new judicial appointments.

President Adams did a remarkable job filling the appointments and getting them hastily confirmed. The so-called “Midnight Judges” by and large received their commissions. But not all of them did. Incoming President Jefferson then instructed his secretary of state not to deliver the remaining ones.

Unsurprisingly, litigation ensued. One of those who was to receive a commission, William Marbury, filed a petition directly in the Supreme Court under a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789. He requested a writ ordering the secretary of state to deliver his commission.

But Chief Justice John Marshall was a staunch Federalist. The republic was young, the court’s legitimacy fragile, and the ability of the nation to endure the peaceful transfer of power between parties uncertain. It was also unclear how Marshall’s ordering the newly installed Jeffersonian Republican secretary of state to do something would go over.

So the chief justice did something very clever. He found that Marbury was entitled to his commission, bestowing legitimacy on those Midnight Judges who had received theirs. But he didn't stop there -- to Marbury's detriment. He then ruled that the Constitution only gave the court so-called “original jurisdiction” over a small number of cases. The provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 bestowing the court with original jurisdiction over writs of the type Marbury sought was therefore unconstitutional.

Jefferson had won, nominally. Madison didn’t have to deliver the commission, Marbury didn’t refile in the lower courts, and he never became a justice of the peace. But history remembers the case as a huge, perhaps decisive, blow against those Jeffersonians who viewed the Constitution as nothing more than a glorified Articles of Confederation.


32 posted on 06/28/2012 3:08:24 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: ConservativeDude

There are multiple parts to the decision. Roberts sided with Alito, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas on the limitations to the Commerce Clause.


33 posted on 06/28/2012 3:09:19 PM PDT by bigdaddy45
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To: Hojczyk

More turd polishing.


34 posted on 06/28/2012 3:10:19 PM PDT by GlockThe Vote (The Obama Adminstration: 2nd wave of attacks on America after 9/11)
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To: FredZarguna
This is unbelievable. We are no longer a free country. Our only hope is those in the military who have sworn to protect the Constitution can save us.
35 posted on 06/28/2012 3:10:41 PM PDT by RavenLooneyToon (Tail gunner Joe was right.)
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To: Hojczyk

This is on the copyright list.

Read the rest of page 1, page 2 and page 3 here.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/06/28/the_chief_justices_gambit_114646.html


36 posted on 06/28/2012 3:13:55 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Hojczyk
This is flaming nonsense. The power to tax as defined in this decision is the power to destroy. Rush Limbaugh has it right - see here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2900617/posts

37 posted on 06/28/2012 3:16:13 PM PDT by Thud
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To: ConservativeDude

>> But they would have gotten that as well if he had just sided with the 4 good guys/dissenters, and wrote a strong opinion.

Exactly how I see it.

I think this article, as with many that have appeared today, is just pundits putting conservative spin on a disappointing decision.

The ‘rats would have done the same, had Roberts voted with the real conservatives.


38 posted on 06/28/2012 3:16:41 PM PDT by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
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To: Hojczyk

You should tune into Mark Levin’s show.
He will explain why this writer has it wrong.


39 posted on 06/28/2012 3:16:46 PM PDT by tennmountainman
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To: FredZarguna

Hey fred...

As I said before, the congress had always had the power to tax anydamnthing it pleases...

congress got no new powers in this decision..

congress got STRIPPED of powers given to it during the communist roosevelt administration.

states rights were reaffirmed by removing any and all penalties against states that choose to “opt out”..

some are crying about fubocare and that the court should have just overturned it. I beleive a golden opportunity was laid at the feet of roberts.

the libs wanted this thing as law no matter what. Roberts wanted the slow creep of socialism, with the commerce clause and that other “feel good” clause that the communists have been using for over 70 years reduced back to original intent.

The libs took the bait.

Now, like what has been said, it is up to us to elect the government we want, and FORCE them to do OUR bidding.

gonna be tough with the socialists that have infiltrated the republican party, but it can be done.

and as a side note, the tax thing does not start until 2014. With so many organizations exempt from the tax, do you really think this tax upon certain people will stand as constitutional?

If this thing is allowed to stand ( and romney already said that he wants to keep parts of it ) then in 2014, the unions and everyone else that thought they had an exemption will be in for a rude awakening...

just my thoughts


40 posted on 06/28/2012 3:18:15 PM PDT by joe fonebone (I am the 15%)
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