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Cashin On The Constitution And Obamacare
UBS' Art Cashin had originally intended to explore the scholarly give and take of both the opinion and of the dissent. Both have marvelous allusions to things like the Federalist papers and “original intent”. As he notes "a full reading is like a visit to the mind gym, a mental workout of the first order."
Art Cashin, UBS:
We were also hoping to revisit the original Marbury vs. Madison decision, which we write about every February 24th on its anniversary. (Justice Marshall did not recuse himself even though it was his failure as acting Secretary of State that set up the case.)
We had intended to write on the nuances of conflict around the rulings. The fact that the dissent was unsigned (a sign of disrespect for the opinion?). The fact that Thomas put in an additional separate dissent. The fact that Ginsberg refers to the multiple dissent as “the opinion” (was Roberts aboard when she wrote it?).
I was also going to explore the theory of many that Roberts was playing chess while the others were playing checkers. That, in the fashion of Marbury vs. Madison, he gave the President a favorable ruling, replete with handcuffs and a straight jacket.
The more I read the dissent, however, the more I saw the minority’s very evident concern that the Constitutions was being weakened. Here is the rather blistering conclusion of the dissent:
The Court today decides to save a statute Congress did not write. It rules that what the statute declares to be a requirement with a penalty is instead an option subject to a tax. And it changes the intentionally coercive sanction of a total cut-off of Medicaid funds to a supposedly noncoercive cut-off of only the incremental funds that the Act makes available. The Court regards its strained statutory interpretation as judicial modesty. It is not. It amounts instead to a vast judicial overreaching. It creates a debilitated, inoperable version of health-care regulation that Congress did not enact and the public does not expect. It makes enactment of sensible health-care regulation more difficult, since Congress cannot start afresh but must take as its point of departure a jumble of now senseless provisions, provisions that certain interests favored under the Court’s new design will struggle to retain. And it leaves the public and the States to expend vast sums of money on requirements that may or may not survive the necessary congressional revision.
The Court’s disposition, invented and atextual as it is, does not even have the merit of avoiding constitutional difficulties. It creates them. The holding that the Individual Mandate is a tax raises a difficult constitutional question (what is a direct tax?) that the Court resolves with inadequate deliberation. And the judgment on the Medicaid Expansion issue ushers in new federalism concerns and places an unaccustomed strain upon the Union.
Those States that decline the Medicaid Expansion must subsidize, by the federal tax dollars taken from their citizens, vast grants to the States that accept the Medicaid Expansion. If that destabilizing political dynamic, so antagonistic to a harmonious Union, is to be introduced at all, it should be by Congress, not by the Judiciary. The values that should have determined our course to- day are caution, minimalism, and the understanding that the Federal Government is one of limited powers. But the Court’s ruling undermines those values at every turn.
In the name of restraint, it overreaches. In the name of constitutional avoidance, it creates new constitutional questions. In the name of cooperative federalism, it undermines state sovereignty.
The Constitution, though it dates from the founding of the Republic, has powerful meaning and vital relevance to our own times. The constitutional protections that this case involves are protections of structure. Structural protections—notably, the restraints imposed by federalism and separation of powers—are less romantic and have less obvious a connection to personal freedom than the provisions of the Bill of Rights or the Civil War Amendments. Hence they tend to be undervalued or even forgotten by our citizens. It should be the responsibility of the Court to teach otherwise, to remind our people that the Framers considered structural protections of freedom the most important ones, for which reason they alone were embodied in the original Constitution and not left to later amendment. The fragmentation of power produced by the structure of our Government is central to liberty, and when we destroy it, we place liberty at peril. Today’s decision should have vindicated, should have taught, this truth; instead, our judgment today has disregarded it.
Wow! I encourage one and all to read both the Opinion and the Dissent. It is important to all of us. It will make my July 4th a very thoughtful one.
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Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Hapiness
"The Court today decides to save a statute Congress did not write." That's all he needed to say, other than to ask yourself why.
The courts are much like the personnel department at work. From the citizen's perspective, you do not sign their paycheck, they do not work for you, they are simply another arm of "the company."
Fucking socialists.
...funny, just before I read this I got thrown out of the humidor inside the Beltway, for messing with the local idiots that I have taunted for years. I asked them if they were ready to celebrate the Second of Sirius tomorrow as bankrupt socialists or are they going to throw tomatoes at Americans on the 4th of July ...after they spit on the Graves of Arlington for having faught for freedom and indepenence in places like Communist Vietnam and Korea etc...? I am banned for life as of today from this place. Lol. Beltway people are the dumbest, most pathetic scum of the Earth, but then again ...I'm the crazy one. Lol. May the storm come and the Earth quake 'til the smoke of her torment is risen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx0R2wDjbiA
...in a humidor, lol, Rosemary's Baby Care. LMAO.
P.S. Mr Down Arrow, and I mean this in your image, which is without mercy, ''DIE NOW!'' ...so you can be free. Lol, moron.
I am glad that Obamacare is not dead. I have serveral family members who cannot get insurance or long term care insurance, and Obamacare will allow them to get both. Universal coverage is provided in almost every modern country except the US. Those countries are not going bankrupt because of healthcare, and we will not either. We will go bankrupt because of other reasons - social security underfunding, unfunded retirements, over funded military, too many loop holes for corporations and rich people, too many services provided by government that could be privatized, etc, etc, etc. As a percetage of GDP, government spending in the US is MUCH lower than in most modern countries.
Most of these Free Market thinkers on ZeroHedge have never experienced a health emergency and have been fucked by their insurance Company.
Do you need an experience to prove your offer? Please share. Lol. I will be happy to help you, upon request, if you require it. Just remember the first rule, idiot.
Insurance companies wrote this law. Idgit.
A lot of people are in the same boat. Mathematically having everyone paying into one insurance policy spreads the risk the greatest amount. Intellectually I get it. But please understand that the implementation of this "care" isn't going to be about care. Its going to be about graft. The traders on this site understand that if you want to make money then you look for where the liquidity is. Your family and your compassionate neighbors are going to care for you much more than this obama care hr 3200. Please remember that the income tax started at 1%.
Europe doesn't have a big military like the USA so they spend more money on Socialism. The USA has a big military that is used to back the currency. We derive a lot of benefits from the USA reserve currency status.
Yshua bless you.
The uproar is not whether or not your family members can finally get healthcare. The important point is that the federal government can use a BS reason to FORCE you to buy a product from private companies, and if you don't, fine or imprison you. Do you get that???
the federal government can ...FORCE you to buy a product from private companies ...
If the Feds could actually force you to buy a product, then there would be no need to fine or imprison you, right?? On the other hand, if the fine or imprisonment must be imposed, it is because the Feds can't force you to buy a product. Logic, logic, logic. You can have force, or penalty, but not both. The truth is, the Fed can't force you to buy. Thus, the need for the penalty if/when you don't.
The fine or imprisonment is force. Your "reasoning" is flawed. Let's use your example. A man is forcing you to give up your wallet to him at gunpoint. He's really not "forcing" you to do it because you could say "no" or walk away. BUT you could be shot. So the implied threat of being shot coerces your actions. Enough of the semantics...save that sh*t for your 1st year English Lit students. It impresses me not.
Make the laughter of me!
American US citizens so gullible, so naive --- they thinking it is that THEY shuould control lives of them own, yes?
Stupid!
Must to the realization making of State knows the bests for all of you, makes decisions of best for all. Duty of real citizens wise to follow, not pretend of lead.
Benevolent dictatorship of Communist Party most sublime method of rule in history of mens. American US citizens thinking they are rulers of them, but rulers of them are those elites of financial and banks. Much better the Chinese way, as always.
Bullshit. The uproar is because the right-wing media want to you to have an uproar.
There's almost zero correlation between danger to the Constitution, and the amount of uproar, here. The mandate was originally a GOP idea. States require you to purchase insurance for any number of things. Your town requires you to pay property tax. Your country may require you to join the military.
I've noticed another correlation. The TeaBaggers post like crazy during working hours - are you people all on unemployment, or are you just goofing off? "Lazy, live off the government welfare liberals" really only balance the discussion during eves & weekends. How do you figure that happens?
Please, post more of your "Uproar As It Correlates to Constitutional Infringement" studies. We are all captivated. Does your town require you to pay property tax to a private company to cover the town's residents who don't pay their tax? Yes, you are THAT stupid to not discern the differences. I post when I want...I'm self employed and not a dumb-ass Obamadrone like you, who I'm sure sucks at the teat of the American taxpayer via your "job." Go scurry off and collect your paycheck at my expense.
Idiot:
Most everyone wanted a single-payer govt-run system, but the GOP dug their heels in for a privately-run solution. "No big govt". OK, we compromised with you; a compromise that preserved your privately-run system, while getting rid of the pre-existing condition exclusion, and providing a safety net for those who fall through the cracks. But you couldn't even deal with that, and so you've lied up a bullshit "Constitutional crisis" - despite the fact that the mandate was mainline GOP policy 15 years ago. No matter, the polls show the general public is increasingly figuring out that you're full of shit.
Private insurers skin 31% of every dollar that passes through their fingers. ACA limits that to 15%. Medicare, the govt-run alternative operates on 12%. HORRORS, the govt runs healthcare better.
As a clinician, yes I do live off your healthcare dollar - and quite well, thank you! BTW, the scare stories of "no clinicians will work for Medicare reimbursements" is also bullshit. Clinicians get paid 2X more in this country than they can make anywhere else - where the heck else are we going to go? The AMA is the biggest scumsucker union that there is. Further, Medicare actually pays more than some of the recent contracts insurers have offered us. More to the point, Medicare pays for what they said they'd pay for - while we get a runaround from private insurers. We call for approval ahead of time, then the insurers change their mind. At least a third of my office gals' time is wasted on this.
Obamadrone: "Most everyone wanted a single-payer govt-run system, but the GOP dug their heels in for a privately-run solution." Huh? Really? Source please (I'm sure you'll link me to a CBS or Media Matters poll). BTW, your "most everyone" does not include me or most people I know. Go read the dissenting opinion and tell me the 4 justices didn't think this decision negatively affected the Constitution. But I'll take your word for it...NOT! It is Americans such as yourself who pose the greatest threat to our republic. Please don't celebrate the 4th...you don't deserve too and you will bring shame on everything that our great nation was founded upon. Seriously, spend the day and read our founding documents. You owe it to yourself and to your fellow Americans.
Thomas Jefferson had it right when he opined about Constitution-destroying justices:
"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account."
Dear SimpleMinds:
The Government is there to use you and your family members as much as they can and then to use the law against you if you complain. The new law will require them to let you die rather than offer you treatment if you attempt getting treated for anything that costs more than an aspirin. The (Federal) Government is run by banks, insurance companies and in general filth, (slime buckets), that dress in suits to con you into letting them kill you.
The scenario now is not much different than going up to a bankster and asking for money since the banksters also own the insurance companies that wrote Obamacare.
You will now be able to get better treatment in Darfur.
Sincerely,
Common Sense
Why is it my obligation to take care of your broke dick relatives? Shouldn't you take care of them first, berfore you steal from me and mine? If you think other countries are better, who tied your ass to the states?
My people fled that Marxist shit, why don't you and yours run over there? We have a Constitution that forbids the shit you want, Marxist. G
Publishing your dissertation on this forum is much the same as asking a vat of Piranha if they would like a cow.
BTW, the US is the ONLY industrialized nation on the face of the planet that does not have a national health insurance plan. Additionally, your state picks up healthcare costs without a federal plan. Thus, you are paying directly for uninsured patients even in West Virginia, Mississippi, and Arkansas.
People, people, people, enough! Every program the government has managed has been a ravishing success: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Social Security, Medicaid, FDIC, USPS, FHA, etc. Just sit back and watch them effortlessly (and might I add, successfully), manage Obamacare. No worries!
The voice of reason. I agree. They are bankrupt and they want to buy more. Go for it. I have enough Pb Au & Ag to see my way through the storm.
Check if there is a Ron Paul petition for your state to urge your governor not to implement Obamacare at the state level where it WILL have teeth - even if Obamacare was struck down! Below are two links for PA and RI. Change the state name in the link using caps:
For RI:
campaignforliberty.com/usa/RI/noexchange.php
For PA:
campaignforliberty.com/usa/PA/noexchange.php
yeah, back when janus had more time, he would read SCOTUS opinions...but mainly for the amusement. some of the 'justices' (and i won't name names) who've found their way to the bench are the most feeble-minded dolts to have evah passed the bar. granted, a few are true thinkers (again, i won't name names; as some may think i support their respective decisions...janus is one of the crazy-kind -- one of those nuts who entertain all well-reasoned positions, no matter their origin)...but, again, it's sad to see how simple-minded are some of our most esteemed legal minds...they should make a law banning morons from the bench.
yes, marbury v. madison was a goddam shame...but, such are the fruits of accountable & transparant 'democracies'.
but, whew, thank God for judicial restraint! or is 'judicial restraint' just another euphemism for tyranny and thuggery? like, maybe, 'national security'.
great work, Cashin.
janus
obama and romney are of the same ilk, but that doesn't mean you don't vote to cut out the cancer that is obama, holder, sebelius and the rest.
job 1 is killing off the democrat left politically.
job 2 is killing off the republican statists politically.
one step at a time, fellas.
job 1 is eradicating obama at the ballot box.
then we take on the statists.
a vote for someone else is a vote for obama, sorry to say.
There is only one way to be safe and secure and that is to save and plan for your own. Reliance on any system that is not inn your direct control puts you at risk. Government control limits choice and incrases the costs of those choices, thereby putting limits on my ability to care for myself. Why has so much been invested in trying to create an affordable (and that was not the intention of this law) healthcare system instead of trying to create a system that ensures that the vast majority of us are prosperous enough to enjoy the best healthcare available. Its the economy thats screwed. Healthcare is but a symptom. And just as an aside, what else would be more important to go in debt or bankruptcy for, saving your life or a house, car or flat screen TV? There are people alive and broke today that ten years ago would be debt free and dead.
Obamacare is a tax on wealth. It was constructed as a wealth tax because wages and employment are decreasing. The Feds want more money not less. This is the latest attempt to get it.
Cashin bringing up Marbury vs. Madison let us reflect on the genius of Jefferson. Yes " the corruptions of time and party, its members have become despots." We need a litle trust busting on the DNC/RNC. Obamney care is just a ruse health care like fannie, Freddie and Sallie are and have been Quasi government since Roosevelt and the Blues. We have moved into this soft fascism with large oligoplies particularly in media, medical, banking, military, and DNC/RNC ALL NEED TRUST BUSTING.
Drop "military" & your thoughts are great.
The bottom line is this on the US military. Without her no one in America or the whole f'ing rest of the free world would be able to say or do sh1t if we're not for its protection provided. That she may have been abused in her use by politicians and sent into battle for questionable "freedom" reasons is NOT a reflection on her; just as a gun, shot by a psycho, that kills a child is not a reflection on the value of a gun.
Only two forces in the history of mankind have devoted their life unto death for the freedom of others, Christ and the US military soldier.
The US military members place their very lives in obedience to the desires of the US people expressed through the politicians the US people elect.
To hate the military is to simply hate an excuse for America, Americans or yourself.
Those who blame the "military industrial complex" for the ills of this nation are merely selfish or ignorant. How many today serve in the military and know how she works or what it takes for her to work?
What's all the commotion about? This is nothing new-rewriting the constitution, changing accounting standards, having centrally-planned markets....we all know the foxes are guarding the henhouse but there are always ways around them: appear too poor to afford the insurance, go to doctors who will still provide services without it, focus on preventative health and natural treatments, etc. If enough people creatively work around the corrupt system, it will eventually collapse!
The constituion is just another worthless piece of paper to the USA government of today. Nothing matters to them except greed and money.
ON VOTING: A. Vote out all incumbants B. Vote for all Libertarians C. Write in YOUR CHOICE where you don't like either incumbant or proposed. By the way, the only REAL VOTE is a PAPER PHUCKING BALLOT PARTNER. Anyway, a Spanish Corp has the contract to count the votes, so I recently read. I've considered writing in Ron Paul everywhere, BUT, voting is kinda like sex. One never knows where to swing the club until he sees the lie of his ball. Err, maybe golf? Sex, golf, chasing cattle outta the back yard with a BB gun. Not much difference these days. Where's my machete.
Let's call it what it is: RombamaCare. Mittwit wrote the blueprint for it. There's no difference between these two idiots. Obamney. This election is my line in the sand. I'd rather have 4 more years of Ogolfer, than chance 8 with the Rominee. I'll either write Ron in, or vote for Gary Johnson. Fuck Mittens.
.
Ummm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2plL-Uvjr4&feature=my_favorites&list=FL10iOXqwm8xbLBMCXlHSluA
Conservatives hating on Roberts amuse me. I predicted this mixed outcome because it was the best long play for a big business baised court, while still taking a chunk out of Obama politcally. Roberts and his allies or stooges (I think Scalia is a true believer, they may not let him in on what part he is playing for them) is playing a most excellent long game and you conservatives will all be more than happy with him and his subsequent rulings. Let's check back again in 5 years and you will see it all worked out pretty well considering people in US have been clamoring for some sort of affordable coverage of uninsured folks for decades now.
SCOTUS's rulings have been slanted towards big business money elites for a long time now, this ruling is no different, I explain why at length below. Big insurance businesses would have preferred whole law struck down but short of that, they definitely wanted the mandate.
Keep in mind, the mandate was not integral to this law,it was quite severable but Roberts didn't go to this compromise position. Mandate was certainly not anymore integral than the Medicaid Expansion was which Roberts gladly and surgically severed from law without seeing need to strike down whole law.
Why not do the same with unpopular, and according to 4 judges, unconstituional mandate? Roberts could have easily partially sided with the minority dissents objection to mandate but unlike them, considered it severable, thus, showing his expressed judicial restraint to let a law stand if remotely constutionally viable.
Also severing mandate would have been simple way to allow main parts and popular parts of law to remain such as ban on lifetime limits, allowing those with pre-existing conditions to get insurance at same rate as others (as big employers already do as forced to by federal law), allowing adult children to be covered by parents til 26, ending gender discrimination in premium rates, closing do it hole in Medicare Part D, rebates to insurance customers if insurers make super profits (sort of a windfall profit tax) etc...
But the dissenters took a very hard line that all these popular and constitutional parts of ACA, (many of which had already been implemented and would have left people and businesses in a horrible mess with coverages suddenly cancelled etc), should be summarily thrown out with mandate's unconstitutional dirty bath water....
Mandate was optional to making the rest of bill work and be budgetarily viable., Vermont did nearly universal affordable care without mandate, Mass did similar but with a mandate, both laws achieved similar results and budget implications for their state, so mandate not inseverable. While the mandate was an element that helped get the sausage of this billl passed, it was hardly inevitably entwined with whole bill. Obama didn't like mandate, he campaigned against it and Hillary's support of it in primary but CBO budget ratings required it to make bill budget close to nuetral, pay as you go, as was Obamas goal for bill.
So why didn't Roerts just sever the mandate...because big health insurers want it. Of course big insurers would have prefer no law at all, but if they were going to have to suffer the indignities of a regulated industry, rebates and all, they certainly wanted to at least get some goodies in there to soften the blow. The mandate (the stick) and the govt subisidies for lower income customers (the carrot), both driving new customers to big insurance was just what the doctor ordered.
Given this, the politcally well coordinated conservative wing of the SCOTUs had two choices, they could give their friends at big insurance all they wanted and strike down whole bill, or they could be less controversial and let some of it remain. If they left some of it remain, that surely had to include the mandate, their secret frenemy. However, if they let some of law remain, they certainly didn't want to expand the commerce clause to justify the mandate (or rather, they would prefer to restrict previous wide interpretation of commerce clause) and same in regard to Mediciad expansion.
So, how to do this? Figure out a justification for the mandate that did not expand commerce cause. Hence Roberts odd-from-looking-on-the-outside gymnastics on the tax issue. He could have just as easily ruled in favor of mandate via commerce clues interpretation of the liberal judges if he was not inclined to overturn law, but he went for an mostly unexpected way to not throw out mandate. Even better, for long-term interests of big business, in the process of making the Medicaid expansion voluntary, you could even further restrict the commerce clause interpretation away from past precedent, even getting some liberal judges to go along with at least a narrow confirmation of this commerce clause contraction.
The tell this was coming was the out-of-left-field surprise decision of the court to even consider the Medicaid expansion issue given long precedent along these lines. To me this was the signal they were not going to throw whole bill out with mandate,why even bother with Medicaid expansion definition of it would if it would soon be a moot point? The surprise taking up of Medicaid expansion was sign of a well coordinated plan of attack, this peice would fit nicely with the rest of their purposes and need to keep mandate.
While all the media pundits in all their scenarios did not predict this mixed ruling , I, with no legal knowledge predicted this well-played conservative court long game simply based on the politics of the times and the court's bias to big business. I simply queried which results would be in the best long -term interests of both big business and conservative politics and most likely to limit large public popular govt insurance programs like Medicare from further seeping into the mostly private corporate domain of working people's health insurance...my answer, given the issues the court took up was simply obvious, keep the big business friendly mandate, so keep the whole of ACA in process, but strike down the Medicaid expansion to working poor (a big govt public insurance schemes that would steal customers from private corporations and make general low income workers like big govt programs). I posted this prediction multiple times prior to SCOTUS ruling, and beat all the pundits that were trying to read legal tea leaves.
The other options both conservatives and big businesses would have preferred would have been complete strike down of whole ACA...why didn't conservative majority go for that instead of mixed ruling? Here's where I think the long game comes in. Its a little of the Marbury cunning other commentators have alluded to, and a little of planning well the political cycle of the court. Though a good riled up part of conservative base would have been ecstatic with ACA smackdown in toto, think of how that would have played out? It would have meant immediate recision of many peoples insurance. It would have meant claw backs of rebates customers already got, claw backs of donut hole coverage for senior pills, it would have meant sick kids covered by their parents being suddenly uninsured and denied coverage or that private and publc hospitals would have to cover them themselves, so as not to look heartless shoving them out of the buliding, etc...in other words as much as it would have warmed the hearts of ACA haters, it would have been a bloody mess and a political nightmare...come on, think of news coverage, sick kids pulled from their doctors, grandpa losing his life-saving pills, insuarnce companies asking for thier rebates back, govt asking for senior donut hole coverage be returned etc... these things would make backlash to mandate look childish compared to the unleashing of angry protests of momma grizzlies seeing their child or elderly mother suffer. It would also would have meant great upheaval and uncertainties for businesses, docs, hospitals...remember health care is 17 percent of our GDP, it's no small thing to make a big chunk of that sector uncertain..think of it as a business in this sector, okay all these existing provisions of ACA are gone, but surely some of the more popular ones, constitutional ones will be put pack in place separately right? Congress and Obama admin will be able to move swiftly on that right? Well maybe they, won't, so we should assume we are back to 2008 now right? Or maybe not?
So throwing out whole law is pretty harsh and judicially activist thing to do that would reign hellfire enthusiasm for Dems to stop activist judiciary that could have chosen to only strike down strike down the mandate,,the unconstitutional part...but noooo, they instead take out the WHOLE law and that ended up killing 23-year-old Brittany so and so who was fine til SCOTUS took her insurance away.
However, a less severe option, just severing the mandate as uncosntituional and leaving most of the rest of the law intact was not a good option given how big business wanted mandate, so that much more generally politically palatable option was out. So what's a conservative chief justice to do? Leave law in place, leave mandate in place but cut back on big govt Medicaid expansion (competitor to private insurance ), while narrowing, not enlarging federal commerce clause in precedent setting ruling. Also have dissenters rulng and even your confirming ruling make politcal swipes at Obama, Sure, unaware conservatives will hate you but you know what's best for them and your rich cronies in long run, you can take the heat.
Some goodies of your long game: you push forward a scathing dissent both in oral arguements and written ruling that makes Obamas mandate even more unpolualr with general public. You also get to position Roberts as a supposedly even handed, restrictive, non activist judge who tries to let any law that is remotely constitutional, be. This sets him up so well then to be able to crush upcoming civil rights cases, like Tiltle 9, voting rights acts, non-racial-discrimation laws etc.. If Roberts had ruled with 4 dissenters and thrown out ACA in toto, causing political,backlash and uncertainty for businesses, then in next year threw out many civil rights laws that had been the law of the land for decade in ruling after ruling, the court would look so partisan, so ham-hamded, so activist in this zeal to erase decades of laws and previous courts precedents, there would have been compounding political backlash...this big business friendly ruling on ACA, upholding mandate via tax authority, not the commerce clause, sets Robert up to go on a tear without looking so partisan, "hey, Roberts at least ruled for ACA, I'll give him benefit of the doubt".
Better yet, you, uncharacteristic of SCOTUS, leave clues in your opinions and immediately leak stories to the well-respected reporter that there was a vote shift, making it look all dramatic and contentious when in fact it was well cooridinated all along. You make it appear Roberts made a unpopular shift at last second, further riling up conservative base and further endearing Roberts to liberals and independent, so the reaction to the pain he will unleash next year will muffled.
Stopped reading at this moronic statement: "Keep in mind, the mandate was not integral to this law,"
No other way about it, you are an idiot.
I stopped reading your post when I realized it was you. You're an asshole.
(moneymutt's actually correct--the mandate to buy insurance could have been dropped from the legislation, but don't let any unwelcome thoughts into that mind of yours. I know there's not much room.)