If reports are to be believed, the Chief Justice Roberts decision just went from worse to worser.
CBS reports that not only did Roberts change his vote on the healthcare mandate from overturning to upholding, he did so for fear of the liberal media.
Roberts’ change of heart was driven by left-wing media anger around the possibility that the law would be overturned. Roberts reads the papers, and is very concerned about the Court’s image.
So the Chief Justice knew the right thing to do but instead chose the easy thing to do.
This is the most despicable kind of cowardice. He sold our liberty for his own temporary approval and comfort.
I didn’t think I could feel worse about this turn of events. I was wrong.
Even worse? The conservative stalwart who pulled out all the stops to overturn the mandate? Justice Kennedy. We had Justice Kennedy and we lost because Roberts wants the cool kids to like him.
If Roberts real concern is the legitimacy of the Court in the eyes of the public, his cowardice is a death blow to it. Now that the liberal media know that their tactics work, it will be employed every single time. Truth is, we will never really know when it influences a decision and when it doesn’t but we do know that sometimes it does.
You don’t get more illegitimate than that.
That is the Roberts legacy.
July 3, 2012 at 5:53 pm
I was a huge supporter of Robert's appointment. Proves how wrong I could be. Obviously, when Obama lectured him, Roberts listened. (Maybe he was invited to join the Choom gang.) But in the end, in my mind he destroyed the last aspect of our government that had any objectivity, and in doing so he became the ringmaster of the Supreme Circus of the United States
July 3, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Bender,
"And most especially do not put your trust in the U.S. Supreme Court… it decreed that blacks were mere chattel property, a decree that was a significant and substantial cause of Civil War in this country."
Sorry, but your devotion to God does not relieve you of at least some deference to truth. Presuming, as it seems clear, you mean to refer to the Dred Scott decision, you are absolutely wrong in stating that the court decreed blacks were mere chattel property. Long before this decision, in the bowels of the 3/5th clause in the first article (dealing with assigning of congressional seats in the several states) of the constitution, the framers acknowledged the pre-existing flaw of race-based slavery. In attempting to fix an end date, or some kind of endurance limit on the institution, the constitution required that importation of slaves be halted after a certain date (can't remember and don't care to look it up) in the early 19th century. As a grand moument to the law of unintended consequences, this created a new market and industry- the domestic slave trade. So the Supreme Court did not declare that blacks were chattel property- only that slaves were. Some (granted, not many) of the slave-owners you surely hate for their racist occupation were actually black freedmen. What the Dred Scott decision did (in grave error) that added to the country's strife was that it declared that Congress had no authority to restrict or outlaw slavery in the territories or on federally controlled lands.
Facts are important. History is important- try to get it right.
JKR in Texas
July 3, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Albert,
Did you really mean this as a blanket statement?
"Taxation by governments is moral and serves the common good."
It is true that governments may levy taxes to fund their rightful ends, but I don't know if I'd give them a blanket statement that any tax they raise (for any end) is moral and for the common good.
JKR in Texas
July 3, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Roberts has a young family. Rumour has it that he was threatened. (Breitbart, theulstermanreport) So in fairness, if that were true, many of you might have done the same. Just trying to say, don't judge without knowing the full story. You never know what could happen behind the scenes.
July 4, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Before you slander me as a liar, JKR, I suggest that YOU get your facts straight.
Upon his entry into Illinois, Dred Scott, black man, became free.
Except that Roger Roberts, I mean, Taney, said that he wasn't. He wasn't free because he was black. Period. And as a black man, being "so far inferior" to the white man, he had "no rights which the white man was bound to respect." NO RIGHTS. NONE. Rather, he continued to remain unfree, a slave, chattel.
And it was this imposition of ruling — which extended slavery ownership throughout the country, even in non-slave states, which until then there had been an uneasy peace of state-by-state federalism with respect to slavery — that was a major factor in the break-out of Civil War. Because of Taney, the issue could no longer be resolved by rule of law, only by force of arms.