John Roberts: the Bill Buckner of the judicial branch.
“Justice Roberts merely reminded us that Congress’ authority is paramount, political and partisan, and that we get what we elect.”
Utter BS! We are not a democracy. We do not let pass whatever the mob on capitol hill declares. I’ve long thought conservatives were wrong to fetishize judicial restraint. For judicial review is among the fundamental and necessary tasks of the court. What’s improper is when they act like Congress and unilaterally rewrite laws (as with busing) or invent rights that don’t exist (as with abortion). Striking down laws that violate the Constitution is not such an overreach, nor is asserting the existence of rights that do exist.
This tradition that’s grown up of deferring to the wisdom of Congress and not even looking into whether laws are constitutional or not unless they prima facie threaten the parts of the Constitution SCOTUS has arbitrarily decided it likes to defend (strict scrutiny, rational basis, and all that nonsense) is just plain wrong. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong. There’s no reason in law or morality, in heaven or on earth, to defer to Congress. There’s no reason to give the constitutionality of laws the benefit of the doubt.
There’s no reason whatsoever for Roberts to rewrite the law (it may be a penalty, but *if* it were a tax, then it’d be okay) in order to rule in favor of it. There’s no reason to pretend that the taxing power is unlimited.
There’s just plain no reason to this decision.
Ping for later: Also, I have always maintained that those in power can make the legal into illegal and the illegal into legal.
CJ Arnold simply acted as he was expected to. He did us a great favor in underlining the fact that we’re playing a rigged game that we can never, ever win.
Whether the GOP wins or we get “conservative” judges is irrelevant. The game is rigged.
The author of this piece of trash can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. Lawyers have taken this country down the path of destruction. Please don’t use the word “Justice” when referring to the traitor John Roberts.
There is no short-term or long-term silver lining. Only a political necrophiliac could see something attractive in this corpse of a ruling.
There are no words in the tongue of men to describe the treachery that has taken place, nor the retribution deserving of Roberts.
I would have the SS (interesting share of an acronym these days) knocking on my door, if I said what I really thought.
I despise him. I don’t care what kind of chess game he thinks he was playing, it was within his power to shoot down this unconstitutional pos, in fact it’s in job description. He didn’t have to find ways to “finesse” it for the sake of politics or anything else-it was his JOB to protect the Constitution and we the people from unconstitutionality, and if this doesn’t fit the bill then nothing does. He and his defenders can spin like a top, he didn’t do his job when he needed to do it like never before.
When even Kennedy would have dismissed this pos, then Roberts is really reaching, stretching to the breaking point, to try to defend this on any grounds. Fricken politics, I hate these people for playing games with real people’s lives and freedom. I wish they could all be dismissed at the push of a button-we could do better choosing from the phone book, as said Buckley.
Here is your comment... I hate his guts!
LLS
Ironic that old man Bush gave us Justice Souter and GWB gave us John Roberts both notorious traitors.
Add me to the hate list.
I obviously would've understood had he sided instead with the 4 justices that dissented by stating that it is unconstitutional as written and should go back to Congress.
I find it unconscionable that he then 're-wrote' the key part by inserting the "tax" concept in order to find constitutionality where none existed prior.