Was Supreme Court Justice John Roberts Blackmailed?

It’s time to start asking the question. It’s time to be cynical. It’s time to assume the worst of this government.

Has Supreme Court Justice John Roberts been blackmailed or intimidated?

I would put nothing by the Obama administration that lives and rules by the Chicago thug playbook.

Doubt me? On the same day that Justice Roberts and the Supremes upheld Obamacare – again – the key IRS watchdog reported to Congress that the IRS purposely destroyed evidence of a crime.

Republicans are being blackmailed, intimidated, extorted and bribed.

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Is the idea implausible that this same Obama administration that orders IRS attacks, then orders destruction of key evidence, would stop at nothing to save Obama’s signature achievement? Is it impossible to believe that Obama and his socialist cabal that learned from Saul Alinsky that “the ends justify the means” would hold something over a Supreme Court justice’s head?

It’s time to ask the question loudly and boldly because something is clearly wrong in Washington, D.C.

Is that the purpose of government agencies like the IRS and the NSA that are abusing our rights – to listen to us, to watch us, to find something we’ve done wrong, and then use it to intimidate, harass, threaten or extort key political figures so that Obama can “fundamentally change America”?

Because something clearly smells rotten in Washington, D.C. Like “the mafia delivering a dead fish to your door” rotten. Conservatives just won national elections in a massive wave, a historic landslide. We control both houses of Congress; we control the Supreme Court, yet we continue to lose every key vote in Congress and every key Supreme Court ruling.

Via: The Blaze

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The Origination Clause: Die Harder, ObamaCare!

Chief Justice John Roberts could begin his next Supreme Court decision regarding ObamaCare with the following statements: "Whoops, ObamaCare is unconstitutional.  As ObamaCare involves taxes, the House -- not the Senate -- was constitutionally responsible for originating ObamaCare."

If Roberts agrees with the Pacific Legal Foundation's (PLF) recent case against ObamaCare, then Roberts, as suggested above, could reverse his decision in June 2012 that most of ObamaCare is constitutional.  On September 11, 2012, PLF sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, alleging that ObamaCare violates the Constitution's Origination Clause, which reads as follows:

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

PLF argues that ObamaCare's Individual Mandate, which Roberts labeled a tax in his June 2012 decision, significantly raises government revenue.  The Individual Mandate "taxes" individuals $695 and families $2,085 per year for not purchasing health insurance plans.  In Roberts' words, the mandate will produce "at least some revenue for the Government ... about $4 billion per year by 2017."  As PLF notes, ObamaCare involves multiple other taxes "estimated to increase federal revenue by $486 billion by 2019."  

Via: American Thinker

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Book: Justice Scalia ‘Enraged’ With Chief Justice Roberts Over Obamacare Decision

(THE BLAZE) A new book details how Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal wing of the court to uphold President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and says Justice Antonin Scalia was “enraged” at him for doing so.

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin’s “The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court“ says the other four conservative justices on the court wanted to ”kill off the entire health care law,“ alienating Roberts who sought out a ”middle ground,” according to excerpts of the book published Saturday by Politico.

A lifelong Republican, Roberts originally intended to vote to overturn the law, but it became apparent to the other justices in April and May that he was going “wobbly,” Toobin wrote:

“The four conservatives had overplayed their hand with the chief justice. By demanding that Roberts kill off the entire health care law, they prompted him to look for some kind of middle ground. … [Justice Antonin ] Scalia was enraged at the chief.”

“Wobbly,” incidentally, is the same word sources used to describe Roberts in a major CBS News story published just days after the court announced its decision.

Part of the reason for Roberts’ switch, according to Toobin, is that he had two goals for his tenure as chief: “to push his own ideological agenda but also to preserve the court’s place as a respected final arbiter of the nation’s disputes.”

A complete nullification of the health care law on the eve of a presidential election would put the Court at the center of the campaign … Democrats, and perhaps Obama himself, would crusade against the Court, eroding its moral if not its legal authority. … Gradually, then with more urgency, Roberts began looking for a way out. …

Via: Pat Dollard

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Once More: Taxes, Obamacare, and the End of the Constitution

Earlier this week, Mike Rappaport  replied  to Mike Paulsen’s  defense  of Chief Justice Robert’s opinion upholding Obamacare’s individual mandate as an exercise of the taxing power. It’s taken me a bit to weigh in because NFIB v. Sebelius continues to grow on me: the more I think about it, the angrier I get. But on a Saturday after a round of golf, I can manage. I think.

Between right-wing originalists called Mike: I believe that the Chief got it almost right; that Mike P.’s defense gets it almost right; and that Mike R.’s objection misses the mark. But the “almosts” matter: they contain all the tragedy and horror of the decision.

To be clear: I have no design to join the conspiracy theorists and “Roberts is a traitor” contingents. Mike Paulsen’s piece contains an eloquent defense of the Chief’s personal and judicial integrity, to which I subscribe wholeheartedly and which will hopefully help to put distance between the grown-ups and the fever swamps. It so happens, though, that honorable people can make mistakes that have very fateful consequences—not on account of a lapse but for respectable and even, and precisely, for honorable reasons. Here goes.

 The Power to Tax. For purposes of deciding whether the payment attached to the “individual responsibility mandate” is a legitimate exercise of Congress’s power to tax, does it matter that Congress call the payment a “penalty” rather than a “tax”? The answer, Mike Paulsen writes in defense of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion, has to be “no”: the constitutional question isn’t whether Congress was invoking a particular power but whether it had the power.

Via: Liberty Law Blog