I thought he'd be taller.

I know nobody is going to believe me, but I have said he will start going hard center a few years in since day 1. He isn't the total ideologue the others are. Yes he is absurdly pro business, but at the end of the day he just wants the country to work

SnakeLee: he just wants the country to work

Novel concept

If you remember, before Bush nominated Roberts to the Court, he nominated Harriet Miers - (who was laughed out of town)

Also, Obama did not vote for Roberts' confirmation.

Funny how the world is sometimes.

Shocked Roberts upheld a bill written by the Cato institute.jpg

How about "Right leaning jurist who's views are grossly misconstrued by both the right and the left."

People seem shocked that the guy isn't a nutter.

DarnoKonrad: SnakeLee: he just wants the country to work

Novel concept

Hey, the Republicans just want the country to work too. The poor part, in particular, needs to start chipping in some efforts around here. If they would work, things would be better off.

palelizard: DarnoKonrad: SnakeLee: he just wants the country to work

Novel concept

Hey, the Republicans just want the country to work too. The poor part, in particular, needs to start chipping in some efforts around here. If they would work, things would be better off.

Tell your buddies to hire them ;) and pay them a wage they can actually live off of and we're good to go!

SnakeLee: I know nobody is going to believe me, but I have said he will start going hard center a few years in since day 1.

"hard center"?

Does that even mean anything?

Third option...

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SnakeLee: I know nobody is going to believe me, but I have said he will start going hard center a few years in since day 1. He isn't the total ideologue the others are. Yes he is absurdly pro business, but at the end of the day he just wants the country to work

Well, the derp from the right today certainly isn't encouraging him to appease them, that's for sure.

palelizard: The poor part, in particular, needs to start chipping in some efforts around here. If they would work, things would be better off.

I know right. We'd be out of this economic slump already if they just up and took some of those jobs laying around vacant.

Roberts is not a complete partisan douche.

Scalia and Thomas are. Thomas should be impeached for his wife taking 1.5 million dollars from healthcare lobbyists for "access".

Maybe he didn't want his legacy to be remembered as the Citizen's United case. Maybe he was an early riser and liked to pack in the morning. And maybe he didn't have any friends. I'm an educated man, but I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently about the court habits of a John G. Roberts.

Craptastic: SnakeLee: I know nobody is going to believe me, but I have said he will start going hard center a few years in since day 1.

"hard center"?

Does that even mean anything?

He means like a nougat-y filling.

Traitor! Turncoat!

I see a bunch of scare, spineless liberals worried about this; but doesn't this reaffirm the carrot and stick?

The new ruling is you can take away a previous carrot and stick by offering a new, better carrot and stick. Carrot and sticks are still AOK, you just can't pull a "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further".

What is worrisome is the hinting on the commencement clause, but has anything really changed? If that was the view before, it's the view now. I'm sure it's be singled before too, just not through the media.

TyrantII: I see a bunch of scare, spineless liberals worried about this; but doesn't this reaffirm the carrot and stick?

The new ruling is you can take away a previous carrot and stick by offering a new, better carrot and stick. Carrot and sticks are still AOK, you just can't pull a "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further".

What is worrisome is the hinting on the commencement clause, but has anything really changed? If that was the view before, it's the view now. I'm sure it's be singled before too, just not through the media.
lolwut?

zarberg: Maybe he didn't want his legacy to be remembered as the Citizen's United case. Maybe he was an early riser and liked to pack in the morning. And maybe he didn't have any friends. I'm an educated man, but I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently about the court habits of a John G. Roberts.

Well done.

My opinion of the Roberts' Court will hinge on whether a revisit to Citizen's United is allowed to be argued. With a few new Justices in there, it very well could be reversed. Maybe not. But I would like to hear the new arguments now that the fallout of the decision is well underway.

max_pooper: zarberg: Maybe he didn't want his legacy to be remembered as the Citizen's United case. Maybe he was an early riser and liked to pack in the morning. And maybe he didn't have any friends. I'm an educated man, but I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently about the court habits of a John G. Roberts.

Well done.

My opinion of the Roberts' Court will hinge on whether a revisit to Citizen's United is allowed to be argued. With a few new Justices in there, it very well could be reversed. Maybe not. But I would like to hear the new arguments now that the fallout of the decision is well underway.

That in my opinion was a bad ruling they could of easily made a more narrow ruling then they did.

TyrantII: I see a bunch of scare, spineless liberals worried about this; but doesn't this reaffirm the carrot and stick?

The new ruling is you can take away a previous carrot and stick by offering a new, better carrot and stick. Carrot and sticks are still AOK, you just can't pull a "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further".

What is worrisome is the hinting on the commencement clause, but has anything really changed? If that was the view before, it's the view now. I'm sure it's be singled before too, just not through the media.

I think the distinction is that there's two separate carrots and sticks. The first, original carrot and stick is traditional Medicaid; the new carrot and stick is the expansion. The court decision said that if a state turns down the new carrot (Medicaid expansion funds), the feds can only use the new stick (withholding expansion funds).

vernonFL: If you remember, before Bush nominated Roberts to the Court, he nominated Harriet Miers - (who was laughed out of town)

Also, Obama did not vote for Roberts' confirmation.

Funny how the world is sometimes.

Roberts did fark up Obama's inauguration, so that balances out Obama's "no" vote.

The part that's really confusing me here is how a Much Music VJ from the 80s ever got on the SCOTUS in the first place.

/What next, Bader Ginsberg steps down and gets replaced by Erica Ehm?

max_pooper: zarberg: Maybe he didn't want his legacy to be remembered as the Citizen's United case. Maybe he was an early riser and liked to pack in the morning. And maybe he didn't have any friends. I'm an educated man, but I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently about the court habits of a John G. Roberts.

Well done.

My opinion of the Roberts' Court will hinge on whether a revisit to Citizen's United is allowed to be argued. With a few new Justices in there, it very well could be reversed. Maybe not. But I would like to hear the new arguments now that the fallout of the decision is well underway.

Montana already got smacked down, even though they used Kennedy(?)'s own words against him.

I think it was Kennedy in the CU decision who said that exorbitant campaign contributions do not give rise to the appearance of influence or impropriety. MT claims that they do and uses that as the basis for narrowing STATE-level contributions. SCOTUS smacks them down far the same reasons (or really, ignored the petition and kept the lower court's ruling).

I don't even know how a credible challenge to CU could even make SCOTUS at this point.

It's rather odd for a Western democracy to be so comfortable to have a partisan judiciary.

This may be the first and only time I say this, but I agree with Justice Roberts. I think the use of the commerce clause to regulate non-activity here was inappropriate.

I also think he left a tidy loophole by saying this "tax" didn't qualify for immunity, and so is still open to challenge. I think he did it as a limitation on the future use of social engineering type taxes.

TyrantII: I see a bunch of scare, spineless liberals worried about this; but doesn't this reaffirm the carrot and stick?

The new ruling is you can take away a previous carrot and stick by offering a new, better carrot and stick. Carrot and sticks are still AOK, you just can't pull a "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further".

What is worrisome is the hinting on the commencement clause, but has anything really changed? If that was the view before, it's the view now. I'm sure it's be singled before too, just not through the media.

We are all now less informed thanks to your statements. WTF are you talking about.

Bungles: It's rather odd for a Western democracy to be so comfortable to have a partisan judiciary.

This vote shows that it was not a partisan judiciary. Read the bill, they detail the reasoning for the decision based upon solid grounds that limit government powers.

The slate article just posted actually goes into this. By removing ACA from the commerce clause and placing it as a task they clarified that Congress has the power to regulate commerce not compel it. A win for smaller government in the long term.

TyrantII: I see a bunch of scare, spineless liberals worried about this; but doesn't this reaffirm the carrot and stick?

The new ruling is you can take away a previous carrot and stick by offering a new, better carrot and stick. Carrot and sticks are still AOK, you just can't pull a "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further".

What is worrisome is the hinting on the commencement clause, but has anything really changed? If that was the view before, it's the view now. I'm sure it's be singled before too, just not through the media.

Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to TyrantII for clearly stating what needed to be said. I'm particulary glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.

I think I need to unplug from all news for the next month. The full-on insanity that has erupted over this is just too much for me. Senators saying the SC doesn't have the authority to decide what is and is not constitutional, incoherent ramblings coming to me via AM talk show hosts who seem to suddenly be unable to even string together word-like sentences while their teabagger followers nod heads in agreement with this tongue they speak in, people calling for removal of a SC justice because he didn't tow party lines even though the SC is not supposed to make decisions based on their political leanings, talking points changing so fast that I've seen the same people stating that insurance companies will all go out of business and this will kill all medical insurance, and in turn all medical care in the US, but then turn right around and say that this is Obama forcing us to give more money to insurance companies to make them even richer, people threatening to move to Canada (where they have gov't run healthcare) to escape the evils of gov't run healthcare.

This is too goddamn much. It's like watching the overreaction that South Park satirized in the Obama/McCain election episode with people literally running and screaming for shelters with their guns in hand because they thought the whole country would fall apart within hours, only this time it's not on the TV.

I think our office teabagger might be having a breakdown. He's gone outside for at least 20 smoke breaks today; he usually takes 3 or 4. The time he's not out there he's been mumbling to himself whilst brandishing the 1000 yard stare. I went out there earlier to ask him a question and not only were his hands shaking, but he lit one cig with the butt of the last one. I've never seen him do that before. Dear God, people, plenty of countries are doing just fine with government-run healthcare systems. This isn't the end of the world here.

palelizard Hey, the Republicans just want the country to work too. The poor part, in particular, needs to start chipping in some efforts around here. If they would work, things would be better off.

They poor will now be forced to chip in or they'll pay the TAX.

palladiate: I know right. We'd be out of this economic slump already if they just up and took some of those jobs laying around vacant.

Maybe they should remember they're poor and take some of the jobs those illegals had before we kicked them out of Alabama and Arizona. But noooo, they're 'American', they think they're better than that. Well I tell you what, brother, you're not American if you're poor. That's just not how we do things around here.

The1andonlyZack: Tell your buddies to hire them ;) and pay them a wage they can actually live off of and we're good to go!

Those ingrates will get paid what they're worth, and if they aren't worth a living wage, then they aren't worth keeping alive! When I was on foodstamps and welfare, did a rich person give me a handout? Nnnoo.

Dr Dreidel: max_pooper: zarberg: Maybe he didn't want his legacy to be remembered as the Citizen's United case. Maybe he was an early riser and liked to pack in the morning. And maybe he didn't have any friends. I'm an educated man, but I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently about the court habits of a John G. Roberts.

Well done.

My opinion of the Roberts' Court will hinge on whether a revisit to Citizen's United is allowed to be argued. With a few new Justices in there, it very well could be reversed. Maybe not. But I would like to hear the new arguments now that the fallout of the decision is well underway.

Montana already got smacked down, even though they used Kennedy(?)'s own words against him.

I think it was Kennedy in the CU decision who said that exorbitant campaign contributions do not give rise to the appearance of influence or impropriety. MT claims that they do and uses that as the basis for narrowing STATE-level contributions. SCOTUS smacks them down far the same reasons (or really, ignored the petition and kept the lower court's ruling).

I don't even know how a credible challenge to CU could even make SCOTUS at this point.

Definitely not with the current makeup of the court.

MFL: palelizard Hey, the Republicans just want the country to work too. The poor part, in particular, needs to start chipping in some efforts around here. If they would work, things would be better off.

They poor will now be forced to chip in or they'll pay the TAX.

derp

Or they knew they couldn't overturn it without killing medicare and Roberts drew the short straw.

Honestly, given that Thomas and Scalia are openly taking bribes, I'm just assuming Roberts is bought and paid for by the insurance industry, and they wanted their windfall.

MFL: palelizard Hey, the Republicans just want the country to work too. The poor part, in particular, needs to start chipping in some efforts around here. If they would work, things would be better off.

They poor will now be forced to chip in or they'll pay the TAX.

Have you ever been right about anything?

If the cost of insurance is more than 8% of your family's income, you are exempt.

Link

To illustrate who would be exempt from the ACA's individual mandate, we constructed an example of a hypothetical family of four with two 40-year-old adults and two children, living in a region with average health care costs, and without access to employer coverage. This family would receive an affordability exemption from the requirement to maintain insurance if their income was below the tax filing threshold or if the cost of insurance would be more than 8% of their income

Now let me be clear, you just read that in Obama's voice.

Sorry, let me start over. I'll be clear, Roberts is no hero. He made a good decision today. It doesn't make his court any less skeevy for many of its other decisions.

My guess is that he saw the Scalia position as a massive overreach that would have opened Medicare and Social Security to attack. I think for all his faults, Roberts saw that as potentially disastrous for the GOP, which would mark the first time since Eisenhower that a Republican actually contemplated the consequences of their actions.

Craptastic: SnakeLee: I know nobody is going to believe me, but I have said he will start going hard center a few years in since day 1.

"hard center"?

Does that even mean anything?

I thought a hard center was the buff guy who hands the football off to the quarterback.

quatchi: [i293.photobucket.com image 276x254]

The part that's really confusing me here is how a Much Music VJ from the 80s ever got on the SCOTUS in the first place.

/What next, Bader Ginsberg steps down and gets replaced by Erica Ehm?

God I loved Erica Ehm.

El Freak:

Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to TyrantII for clearly stating what needed to be said. I'm particulary glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.

Guys, you should know better than to let me near a computer after slamming a large iced coffee, extra espresso.

Sorry for rotting yer brains....

rufus-t-firefly

They poor will now be forced to chip in or they'll pay the TAX.

Have you ever been right about anything?

If the cost of insurance is more than 8% of your family's income, you are exempt

lol 8%? That's an awful lot of income there sport.

But I see what you're getting at, premiums will eventually skyrocket and then the poor and middle class won't have to pay. YAY

Free healthcare for all paid for with unicorn sweat!!! Progressives rule!

JollyMagistrate: Bungles: It's rather odd for a Western democracy to be so comfortable to have a partisan judiciary.

This vote shows that it was not a partisan judiciary. Read the bill, they detail the reasoning for the decision based upon solid grounds that limit government powers.

The slate article just posted actually goes into this. By removing ACA from the commerce clause and placing it as a task they clarified that Congress has the power to regulate commerce not compel it. A win for smaller government in the long term.



The fact that people are so surprised how the vote fell sort of shows that you have a politicised judiciary, no/

MFL: Free healthcare for all paid for with unicorn sweat!!! Progressives rule!

I don't like how we're now going to pay for healthcare for the destitute instead of letting them die in the street. I'm with you, bro.

FReepers have just played the "Blame Bush" card on this. No, really. Link

Farking priceless.

cc_rider: FReepers have just played the "Blame Bush" card on this. No, really. Link

Farking priceless.

Mother of GOD! That poor snake has swallowed itself all the way up to it's head!

Would now be another good time to ask liberals to admit they were wrong about the Commerce clause?

Mwhahaha.

Its a tax. Just like Medicare.

randomjsa: Would now be another good time to ask liberals to admit they were wrong about the Commerce clause?

We need to get them all in the same room and ask them.

You are a non-useful tool.