Sunday, July 1, 2012

The Pete Morin Editorial Review 2012-8

Chief Justice John Roberts--Liberal lion of the judiciary

What can be said about Thursday's ruling concerning Obamacare that hasn't been said by thousands, or even millions of postings in the past few days. Not much.

First, let's dispense with the obvious: the individual mandate is not constitutional under the commerce clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. How wonderful! Are we now protected from future liberal attempts to alter the meaning of the clause to fit a liberal agenda? Hardly. There'll be many more attempts to change this section in the years to come.

Just what did the American people get from this ruling. Those of a liberal persuasion are now enamored of the fine, lawful jurisprudence of Chief Justice John Roberts in crafting such a great decision upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare. Those of the conservative persuasion are left with stomachs churning as from too much beer, nachos and extremely hot peppers.

Evidently, Chief Justice Roberts( who will now be referred to as 'Old Slip & Fall'), felt a need to placate those, would be, detractors on the left who would excoriate him for being a tool of the far right. OSF wilted under the pressure of a socialist President hell bent on 'transforming America.' Those are Obama's words, not mine. Apparently, OSF felt that America does, indeed, need transforming and what better way than to pull from very thin air a new meaning of the word 'penalty.' You see, when Congress passed  Obamacare there was not even a mention of the word 'TAX' in said document. In fact, the liberals demorats(misspelling intentional) conspicuously left that word absent from the law. If they had used this word their constituents would disapprove and could send them packing in the next election. So they used the word penalty--and were sent packing anyway!

But OSF just couldn't seem to concur with the other four justices in scuttling the entire law. He remembered President Socialist demeaning him at the SOTU 2010 speech for his finding in the Citizens United case. Belittled he was, and didn't much care for feeling the heat from our esteemed, transformative, Commander-in-Chief. No, OSF wasn't going to put himself in such a prostrate position again. Placate the socialist he meant to do, and placate he did.

A quick reading of the Constitution produces not one single reference to calling a penalty a tax. It calls a tax, a tax. Article 1, Section 8 reads; " The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect taxes....". Since this section has been superseded by the 16th amendment, we go there for a further reading; " The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived....". No where is the word 'penalty' mentioned within the document. But OSF knows better. He knows what the people who wrote Obamacare really meant. They meant TAX, even though they vehemently denied any such word, or connotation in their crafting of the bill.

Doesn't matter. We now have new Supreme Court precedent as to what penalty actually means, and all thanks to our Chief Justice, OSF.


Great going Johnny! You sure did straddle that political fence. We can't wait for your next judgment when you change the word 'Constitution' to mean toilet paper.