Obamacare and the Supreme Court

[calicoug]

John Roberts was nominated after the Harriet Miers uproar? That's news to me and I'm sure that's news to John Roberts and Sam Alito.

She was nominated before Alito, but I don't think that was the point. More a shot against conservatives for celebrating one pick as "conservative" and in his opinion missing the call on Meirs.

[calicoug]

Roberts made it pretty clear that he wasn't passing judgment on the merits of the law and whether it was good policy; in fact, I think he implied that it wasn't good legislation.

There were people before all this that were saying that the Court upholding this law would help Romney more than if they overturned it. I'm not one who believes that, because overturning the law would have made the entire Obama presidency seem like an utter waste to nearly everyone which is worse than his presidency seeming pernicious to only some because Obamacare remains.

But I certainly understand the argument because now it's not simply a matter of the House keeping Obama in check, now we have to get rid of this horrific legislation because it will do tremendous damage to our health care system. You can explain things away about not caring what the polls say -- but they've been pretty clear and the 2010 midterms were very clear, not clear enough for someone like you to get the message though and the same can said for Obama.

Without the Supreme Court case, Obamacare may have faded somewhat into the background. Maybe you can explain to everyone here that if Obamacare was such a great piece of legislation, then why is it largely not implemented until after the 2012 election? These guys thought they could shove this legislation in despite the popular will against it, it would fade in everyone's minds and Obama would cruise to reelection based on the fantastic economy borne of Obama's "great bang for the buck" stimulus. Because of the Supreme Court case, that scab has been ripped off and people are pissed off like it's 2010 again. It also turns out that food stamps and dropping bags of money onto spendthrift state and local governments doesn't exactly breed economic expansion (please explain your great bang for the buck side of things, we're all ears).

Anyway, if it is 2010 again, then Obama is toast. If Scott freaking Brown can win Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat as a result to Massachusetts not wanting Obamacare, then I'm having a hard time seeing how Roberts calling this thing a tax two years later and thereby reopening this wound is going to do anything but hurt Obama in places like Ohio and Florida which aren't exactly Massachusetts. This decision was going to be a negative for Obama regardless of result -- despite my diatribe here I still believe overturning it would have been worse for him, but actually happened and the law being labeled as a tax isn't exactly political manna from heaven for Obama.

That was an awful lot of hyperbole culminating in your conclusion that ruling against Obama would have been worse for him than saying it is a tax. If that's your conclusion, fundamentally you agree with my point. The rest doesn't seem particularly worth replying to (and I don't think you are actually looking for an open conversation on anything else you wrote).

[All-American]

That was an awful lot of hyperbole culminating in your conclusion that ruling against Obama would have been worse for him than saying it is a tax. If that's your conclusion, fundamentally you agree with my point. The rest doesn't seem particularly worth replying to (and I don't think you are actually looking for an open conversation on anything else you wrote).

Yikes. That's pretty catty. Even for you.

[calicoug]

Yikes. That's pretty catty. Even for you.

Not often you see a catty reply complaining about a catty reply.

[LA Ute]

She was nominated before Alito, but I don't think that was the point. More a shot against conservatives for celebrating one pick as "conservative" and in his opinion missing the call on Meirs.

It's hard to read Roberts' opinion in this case and conclude on that basis that he's not a conservative.

[calicoug]

It's hard to read Roberts' opinion in this case and conclude on that basis that he's not a conservative.

I guess it depends on how you define conservative. I think the opinion was moderate and well-crafted and in some ways brilliant. I can also see a conservative element. But, I think to many conservatives like Mr. Fleisher, conservative means predictable in support of a conservative agenda. That definition clearly doesn't apply to Roberts as things stand this week after the Arizona case and the mandate case.

[venkman]

I guess it depends on how you define conservative. I think the opinion was moderate and well-crafted and in some ways brilliant. I can also see a conservative element. But, I think to many conservatives like Mr. Fleisher, conservative means predictable in support of a conservative agenda. That definition clearly doesn't apply to Roberts as things stand this week after the Arizona case and the mandate case.

I can't speak for anyone else, but conservative to me means protecting the people against unconstitutional power grabs that threaten the concept of limited government and individual liberty. To me and millions of other Americans, this was in no way shape or form a conservative opinion. You want a conservative opinion, read Scalia's defense. Not Roberts's convulted lawyer gobeldygook.

[calicoug]

I can't speak for anyone else, but conservative to me means protecting the people against unconstitutional power grabs that threaten the concept of limited government and individual liberty. To me and millions of other Americans, this was in no way shape or form a conservative opinion. You want a conservative opinion, read Scalia's defense. Not Roberts's convulted lawyer gobeldygook.

Take it up with LA. He disagrees with you.

[All-American]

Not often you see a catty reply complaining about a catty reply.

I think I just did.

[LA Ute]

Take it up with LA. He disagrees with you.

I don't want to play. You two have fun.

[Colly Wolly]

Yikes. That's pretty catty. Even for you.

Everybody who knows Cali knows how he gets down.

[oxcoug]

I guess it depends on how you define conservative. I think the opinion was moderate and well-crafted and in some ways brilliant. I can also see a conservative element. But, I think to many conservatives like Mr. Fleisher, conservative means predictable in support of a conservative agenda. That definition clearly doesn't apply to Roberts as things stand this week after the Arizona case and the mandate case.

He sided with the conservatives on every major legal question being decided-
*Commerce Clause doesn't justify the mandate
*Necessary and proper doesn't justify the mandate
*Federal govt can't punish states on Medicaid

And as much as the outcome went against what most conservatives wanted, even his tax loophole was arguably an act of judicial conservatism - i.e. restraint in not overextending the authority of the Court.

BTW, has anyone here read the briefs? The government did make the tax argument in the briefs. Contrary to what I keep hearing that Roberts invented the tax argument whole cloth, the argument was there.

[DU Ute]

He sided with the conservatives on every major legal question being decided-
*Commerce Clause doesn't justify the mandate
*Necessary and proper doesn't justify the mandate
*Federal govt can't punish states on Medicaid

And as much as the outcome went against what most conservatives wanted, even his tax loophole was arguably an act of judicial conservatism - i.e. restraint in not overextending the authority of the Court.

BTW, has anyone here read the briefs? The government did make the tax argument in the briefs. Contrary to what I keep hearing that Roberts invented the tax argument whole cloth, the argument was there.

I thought the tax thing was cali's idea?

[LA Ute]

He sided with the conservatives on every major legal question being decided-
*Commerce Clause doesn't justify the mandate
*Necessary and proper doesn't justify the mandate
*Federal govt can't punish states on Medicaid

And as much as the outcome went against what most conservatives wanted, even his tax loophole was arguably an act of judicial conservatism - i.e. restraint in not overextending the authority of the Court.

BTW, has anyone here read the briefs? The government did make the tax argument in the briefs. Contrary to what I keep hearing that Roberts invented the tax argument whole cloth, the argument was there.

Yes, the tax argument was there but the Solicitor General didn't use it in oral argument, probably because it makes the Democrats and the White House look so duplicitous.

[calicoug]

I thought the tax thing was cali's idea?

My idea? Where do you get that from?