In downtown Baltimore we have a statue of one of the worst Americans in our collective history. That would be Roger B. Taney, the author of the Dred Scott decision. Everything about Taney screamed partisan hack. It was his life’s story. He was a white supremacist who firmly believed that “American Exceptionalism” was “White Exceptionalism”. It is a world view that still fuels the Romney campaign and the modern conservative movement.
The Dred Scott decision was infamous for many things. It overturned decades of settled law in an attempt to force a political solution in favor of the Southern Aristocrats that Taney sought to please. The ruling also sought to end any powers of the Federal government to limit the Galtian overlords of his day.
In his Dred Scott decision Taney defined the term “American citizen” in a manner that is still fully embraced by today’s conservative movement:
The words “people of the United States” and “citizens” are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the “sovereign people,” and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.
It was exclusionary. Only white people had rights in Taney’s America and some white folks–the elites–had more rights than “regular” citizens. In Taney’s America, folks had to bend the knee to their betters–especially the white elites of his time who ran an economic system based on the theft of labor. This notion that citizenship in America is a limited and restrictive “right” is a core belief that the conservative movement has been working to fully reestablish ever since they got their ass kicked in the Civil War. And now to their collective horror one of the “subordinate and inferior class of beings” that Taney identified in Dred Scott has become President of the United States. This, more than anything else, is the source of wingnut rage at Barack Obama.
Conservatives and White Exceptionalists has always fought to defend Taney and his ideas, but for a long, long time Taney and his Court have been a stain on the integrity and honor of America. That is changing. His views that American Exceptionalism = White Exceptionalism is the core principle of conservative politics. The Taney Court is a role model for Teabaggers, wingnuts and the Roberts Court–and Roger B. Taney is the Chief Justice role model for John Roberts.
Like Taney, Roberts practiced considerable judicial overreach so that his Court could be in the business of deciding who is a proper “American Citizen” and what kinds of rights various classes of “citizens” should be allowed to enjoy. Both decided that only “American Citizens” who fit within the boundaries of their biases should be entitled to most rights and that any lessor classes of “citizens” that they establish should have fewer rights. Both Courts decided that the definition of these rights should be always be decided in a manner that helped the elites who put them into power. For Taney that meant subtraction: he identified an entire groups of people in America–people of color–and decided that they would no longer have any rights. Taney made them all non-citizens with a scratch of his pen. For Roberts it was addition. In his Citizens United case he created a super class of citizens–corporations and the wealthy–whom he granted rights and privileged far, far beyond the rights regular Americans enjoyed as a birthright. In both cases these partisan hacks twisted the Constitution and overturned decades of established law to please their galtian overlords.
During his years as Chief Justice, Roger B. Taney destroyed the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and the rule of law in the United States. That destruction led to the Civil War. I think that it is a safe bet, that by this time Thursday, John Roberts and his conservative majority will have followed in the footsteps of Taney and destroy the legitimacy of the SCOTUS and the rule of law in our era.
If the Health Care Law had been passed by Bush, Roberts and company would vote for it–no questions asked. But it was passed by that Black man in the White House, so they must reverse themselves. No wonder Tony was so bitchy on Monday, he’s been twisting himself into knots trying to justify his coming flip-flops of long standing legal opinions.
In his Dred Scott decision, Roger B. Taney made his white surpremacist views painfully clear when he wrote that Negroes in America:
…. had no rights which the white man was bound to respect…
For the Roberts Court and the conservative movement in America that is still painfully true. They can find nothing about Barack Obama to respect. They will say or do anything to make this painfully clear. To prove the point, the Republican House will hold a vote to symbolically lynch Eric Holder on Thursday, just because they feel like it and just because they can.
This is how a Nation of Laws is destroyed.
I expect John Roberts to lead that destruction. I expect a ruling on Thursday that will complete the transition of the SCOTUS into just another ultra-partisan body that puts short term “victories” and their political team above the Law, the Constitution, and the Nation. Once the rule of law is destroyed, we will pay the price as a Nation. It happen before and it will happen again. I only hope it will not be a price steeped in blood, but that is what we had to pay to cover tab for the Taney Court. I expect that paying the tab of John Roberts and his Court will lead to a similar outcome.
I would like to be wrong, but somehow when it comes to wingnuts, things always turnout worse than you can imagine. And under John Roberts, the SCOTUS is wingnut central comand.
Cheers
Killjoy
So, you predict 6-3 to uphold?
Polar Bear Squares
Feeling optimistic I see?
Wow. I would love to disagree but that’s about how I see it.
The problem is … when are we going to fight back? When are we going to stop blaming all of our problems on the black guy? As if there is something he could do to reason with them. He can’t.
I would love to see Democrats to start attacking key Republican constituencies like they do ours. Stand behind gun control laws, repeal stand your ground laws, promote pro-choice legislation. I feel like these things are important to a lot of people but we spend all of our time blaming the lack of political will on these things on each other instead of finding ways to achieving these goals despite vigorous opposition. It feels like they’re up 10, its the fourth quarter and our defense is tired. They’re wearing us down.
I get that we’re not wingnuts. We don’t sellout for the greater goal. Winning at all costs isn’t our thing. Well, it better fucking start being our thing. Cause they’re kicking our ass. And we’re blaming ourselves. We’re pointing out their hypocrisy while they could give a fuck how it looks. All they want is the victory. Short-term or long-term. Doesn’t matter how it looks.
I’m not advocating anything radical, violent or irrational. I’m just saying we should meet them on their level. If not, we’re going to keep dealing with crap like this.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Dennis, it’s good to see you back! Now I’m going to take you to task on a point of history.
Not so much. What Scott did was to make moot the laws of the states’ that prohibited slavery inside of their borders. Yes, that’s right, it stripped states of their rights.
Chris
Yep.
One remarkable thing I’ve noticed when I read back through American history is that economic royalism and white supremacism have always gone hand in hand. The alliance between economic elites and white racists isn’t a product of the 1960s or even the 1930s. In its modern form, you can probably trace it back to the 1870s – the Republicans who ended Reconstruction and handed the South back to the ex-Confederate racists are the same guys who handed over the federal government and the entire country to the robber barons for the next couple generations. Before that, the economic elites were the slave-owners, so the two groups were basically the same persons.
Conversely you’ve got people like Lincoln, who wasn’t just an abolitionist but also an economic populist, one who had some choice words to say about capitalism and in defense of labor. It really is the same fight now that it was then, on all fronts. They may try to bullshit you with that “party of Lincoln” crap, but Lincoln would’ve been as disgusted by their Randroid economics as by their white supremacism.
David Koch
Someone on MSNBC tonight said if Roberts overturns ACA and the underlying reams of case law supporting it, he’ll go down as the 2nd Roger Taney.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
i don’t disagree with your suppositions, i just disagree with your conclusion.
the republicans do not want to re-fight healthcare this election.
do they really want the ryan plan to be their campaign message?
scav
— Abraham Lincoln to H. L Pierce and others
April 6, 1859
Trentrunner
I was reading Chris Hayes’ new book, getting depressed, and came here for some Tunch relief or a righteous ABL outburst to cheer me up.
Now I’m ready to go the full Sylvia Plath. Thanks, D.
gussie
$20 says 6-3 to uphold the ACA, including the mandate.
But I want odds.
Mike
@gussie: the current line is 7:1 against. That would be some nice winnings if you make it.
Mike E
Roberts showed his disdain for this president by thoroughly botching the administering of the oath on 1-20-09. Thursday, I expect him to show his ass.
The Dangerman
I’m still manic depressive, apparently; half of me says the Plain White Tea Shits will be apoplectic tomorrow as the USSC says that the ACA is fine and dandy (I’ve called 7-2 upheld)…
…and half of me figures that the Court will lay waste to it and who knows how many of the constructs that were used to build it. If they are going to stray from settled law, might as well nuke some of that settled law as well. I hope the people “in charge” know how to manage the fallout (of the market, etc.) if it goes REALLY bad.
I’m barely (BARELY) leaning towards the first outcome (after popping some more lithium). The mandate was a fucking gift to Big Business. Having a shitstorm, if not a partial meltdown, in the markets tomorrow isn’t the most desirable outcome for little more than to validate the bullshit they’ve been spewing (death panels, etc.). In the end, the ACA is a fairly fucking centrist bill.
RadioOne
I think Chief Justice Roberts is mostly concerned with the prospects of big companies over anything else. So with the question of the ACA repeal, he really only has two options: he can side with the insurance companies and rule with the liberals on the court and uphold the law, or he can repeal the law entirely, and try to justify it legally, somehow. He’s not going to kill the mandate alone, because that would kill private insurance companies.
Obviously, I think he’s probably going to vote with Justice Kennedy to uphold the law. 6-3.
r€nato
@Chris:
Huh? It was the “Radical Republicans” who led the charge for Reconstruction policies, which Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson tried to soft-pedal. The reaction against Reconstruction led to Democratic victories in the latter part of the 1870s which unwound Reconstruction reforms.
It was the Democrats who handed the South back to the ex-Confederate racists… in other words, themselves. This is why – until LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act nearly a century thereafter – it was very difficult for a Republican to win any significant elective office in the South.
Zach
Hah. That’s Taney? Will have my dog piss on him the next time I take him for a walk to the (original) Washington Monument. We also have a gigantic equestrian sculpture of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, which is even more ridiculous since it was finished in 1948.
NR
@gussie:
Yep. After Citizens United, no way will this court pass up a chance to turn us all into slaves to private corporations. The mandate will stay, and we can kiss the Constitution goodbye once and for all.
Zach
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): “Yes, that’s right, it stripped states of their rights.”
Libertarians don’t think that states should have separate contract and property laws… presumably Scott’s master (yuck) could’ve been charged while illegally using slave labor in slavery-free territories. That was a secondary part of the decision, though; the majority denied Scott standing, finding that no one of African descent could claim citizenship. Libertarians advocate very strong property and contract law… except, that is, when it comes to contracts between a group of workers and management.
r€nato
this post is good polemics, but frankly I can only agree with half of it, just barely.
the ‘nation of laws’ won’t be destroyed if SCOTUS guts or overturns ACA, but the legitimacy of the court itself is surely at stake.
Roberts may be conservative but he is not a blatant, blinkered ideologue like Alito/Thomas/Scalia. He is mindful of his legacy and of the harm already done to the Court’s legitimacy by a constant series of 5-4 rulings. (one would hope he’s also aware of the harm done by the travesty of justice known as Bush v Gore, even if he agrees with the end result)
If the Court is indeed going to overturn ACA – not just the mandate but all of it – it has to do so in a way that it is not perceived as motivated primarily by partisan politics and GOP talking points. It has to be solid as a rock, unless Roberts truly does not care about his legacy or preserving the shreds of what’s left of the Court’s legitimacy as a final arbiter of law, rather than as a partisan institution like Congress.
I would put my money on the 6-3 decision largely upholding ACA, with a 50-50 possibility of overturning the mandate but not severing the rest of ACA. I think there’s a small but significant possibility that they could punt this to 2015 by leaning on the Anti-Injunction Act.
If I turn out to be wrong and the Supremes ditch ACA in great part or in its entirety, then I’ll be wrong but it will also be true that Roberts will have won a very pyrrhic victory for the right. I just don’t see how one can gut Obamacare without relying in large part upon Fox News Channel/tea party rhetoric.
Yutsano
@Zach:
The Invisible Hand must stay free after all. People are mere things next to that.
Zach
@gussie: I’d guess 6-3 as well. Republicans don’t actually give a hoot about Obamacare; repealing it isn’t a legislative priority, but yelling about wanted to repeal it turned out to be an effective political tool. A 5-4 majority for repeal would make it more difficult to keep Kennedy on board when it comes to real Republican priorities: ending voting rights act oversight, ending affirmative action, expanding Heller, essentially ending unions (by requiring opt-ins for anything dues from new employees and banning closed shops), removing caps on personal political contributions, inventing a right to anonymous political donations, etc. All of these are going to be way unpopular; a couple non-5/4 decisions on politically polarized issues will stop people from turning on the Roberts court.
Dennis G.
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): It also invalidated the Federal Government’s ability to make laws that would govern the territories. At a stroke of a pen, Taney overturned decades of laws and compromise establishing where slavery could and could not flourish. It basically said the Federal government had no rights under the commerce clause. And, as you point out, it also opened the door to overturn all anti-slavery laws in all States. It pretty much turned the established rule of law upside down.
Here is how David Blight put it:
I think he was pretty much spot on.
Cheers
NR
@r€nato:
Well since 72% of the people think the mandate is unconstitutional, I don’t think that’s a major concern.
Dennis G.
@Zach: Yep that Lee monument is pretty suck ass as well. I’ve always thought it would be nice to move the Taney stature back about 15 feet and put a stature of Frederick Douglas between him and the Washington Monument…
piratedan
@NR: hey, you mind cleaning up that number…. apparently it came right out of your ass.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Zach:
I’m referring to “states’ rights” in the context of the Confederate justification for secession. And while to the Court the case was primarily one of standing, the outrage in the free states was aimed directly at the trampling of rights of the citizenry of the individual states and territories to determine their laws regarding slave labor. As Lincoln put in in his “House Divided” speech:
karen
So in other words, the next steps the Roberts SCOTUS will take will be to overturn the amendment (I admit I don’t know which it is) that made slavery illegal? Is the goal here to overturn suffrage? It seems like they can just make whatever laws they want, even if it’s not the case they were brought so who knows? Please tell me I’m wrong Dennis. If I am wrong please explain what you meant.
NR
@piratedan: Nope. Even 56% of Democrats think the mandate is unconstitutional. Because it is.
Yutsano
@NR: [citation needed]
Jewish Steel
@NR: I think it is constitutional. Because I do.
Hey, con law is totally cinchy! Who knew?
Zach
@NR: Why didn’t anyone challenge the 1792 mandate that every man of fighting age had to buy a musket? I’m sure Scalia will invent some reading of history in which the power of the legislature to organize the Militia is clearly so great that it can be used to mandate purchases while the power of the legislature to regulate interstate commerce doesn’t work that way:
“The Congress shall have Power … To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States … To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia.”
NR
@Yutsano: Citation already given. Look up.
NR
@Zach: The 1792 law to which you are referring did not mandate the purchase of a firearm, but only that men had to “provide themselves with one.” Making your own gun, or having a friend do it for you, would have been a perfectly acceptable alternative. It’s a far cry from forcing everyone by law to give money to private corporations.
piratedan
and yet, here’s another survey months afterwards that shows…..tada…51% and the number keeps getting lower as the usual Republican disinformation is stripped away and shown to be the usual pack of cherrypicked facts and numbers taken out of context.
http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/f45d035d-29d5-4da4-900a-45abcb90e929
so please, feel free to go troll elsewhere.
piratedan
@NR: ahhhh so its private corporations that are the rub here… so that means you’re in favor of a national healthcare system, right?
NR
@piratedan: Yes. I have been all along. I wanted the Democrats to pass Medicare for all when they had the chance in 2009. But they were more interested in improving insurance company profits than they were in improving the health care system.
NR
@piratedan: That poll says 70% oppose the mandate. Depending on how the questions were asked, I don’t see a conflict with the Gallup poll.
Chad
@NR: it’s two in the morning take your trolling ass to sleep
The prophet Nostradumbass
Why is anyone trying to have a rational discussion with NR? This clown lies repeatedly, about things that have been debunked repeatedly. He lies about the mandate, about the possibility of a “public option” being passed, about the possibility of “Medicare for all” being passed.
Yutsano
@NR: I’m sorry, where did you attempt in this thread to prove your bullshit?
@The prophet Nostradumbass: But can’t you see? He knows DA TROOF!! And it is merely his brilliance that he chooses to share with us Obot sheeple that we can be turned onto the One True Path.
piratedan
@NR: what a load a horseshit that statement is:
Kennedy was dead, there weren’t 60 votes to be had. If you think that Nelson, Lincoln, Saint Mary of New Orleans and Joe “I’m taking bids for my vote” Lieberman were gonna line up for Single Payer then you are fucking delusional. Period.
Jewish Steel
This argument infuses me with the same sense of nostalgic warmth I feel when I hear Wolly Bully on the radio. Ah, memories.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@NR:
A 1798 “Federal Law Requiring the Seamen to Buy Hospital Insurance for Themselves”?
Please read the entire thing, including Elhuage’s rebuttal in the update. What you’re doing up there? That is what I think I can safely call a bad “formalism over function” argument, since functionally, if he didn’t have
healthcarea musket already, he had to make the time or earn the money– functionally the same thing- to get his hands on one.Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@piratedan:
This, this, this and FUCKING THIS!
Odie Hugh Manatee
The only problem with your writing Dengre is that you don’t do it enough here. :) I think that the court is going to slice and dice the law in their ruling but I wouldn’t be surprised if they outright overturned it either.
@NR:
You do understand that determining whether or not something is constitutional isn’t a popularity contest, right? That and your dyslexia is popping up again, at best it’s 27%, not 72%.
Fucking stupid and crazy people…
NobodySpecial
Taney was an equal opportunity dick, however, because he gave President Doughface Buchanan so many fits.
In fact, he was so much a thorn in Buchanan’s side that none other than Benjamin Wade famously prayed for Taney to live through Buchanan’s term. After he lived through Lincoln’s first term, he swore never to pray for the health of a Chief Justice again, and the wags of Washington noted that prayer was probably exhausting and unfamiliar to Wade.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@karen:
You’re concentrating on the trees. ;)
The point being that to overturn ACA, the vast body of presumably settled law that pertains would have to be ignored, and ignoring presumably settled law is exactly what the majority did in Scott.
gwangung
@NR: Y’all see what you want to see. When somebody who knows better tries to correct you, you just plug your ears and go “la la la la!”
NR
@piratedan:
Before he died there were. The Dems could have passed anything they wanted. They chose to pass a Republican bill that enriches private corporations at the expense of America’s health care system.
NR
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Nope, it’s 72%. Learn to read. The link is right there in comment 27.
NR
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Go ahead. Document one single lie. I dare you.
You can’t, because you’re full of shit.
David Koch
This is a slam dunk case.
The DC Circuit Court did a nice, clear, and concise summary of the legal history supporting the mandate in only 12 short pages (pg 25-37).
If anyone wants the legal explanation, written in a quick, readable manner, flip through it.
The legal precedents are beyond solid, which is why every single scholar has called the opponent’s case a joke and an insult to intelligence and history.
And that is why Roberts will go down as the second Roger Taney if he scuttles the weight of 230 years of case law.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@NR:
And of those 60 (59 after Kennedy did the mortal coil shuffle), 11 of them wouldn’t vote for the public option, with one of ’em (Tester) saying he’d support a public option of his liking…But, of course, he never described the kind of public option he’d like.
It’s a big tent. We get Lily Ledbetter because of it. But we don’t necessarily get universal healthcare just because we got Ledbetter.
Yutsano
@NR: An opinion poll is irrelevant. If popular opinion governed all our laws I’d be lucky to be alive.
piratedan
@NR: oh yeah… that’s right, because the most important thing on the minds of the American people in the spring of 2009 was health care…
because that’s foremost in the minds of the people when there’s 11% unemployment on the streets, the banksters have been bailed out but for some reason that hasn’t satisfied the markets or the housing industry and the auto industry was on the verge of putting MILLIONS more out of work while walking that fine line of hoping that the entire western financial system doesn’t melt down, we’re gonna right our boat with healthcare reform.
So, while I do believe that the health care reform was damned important, passing the stimulus package to keep the country from a 1920’s like depression was perhaps a bit more important. ymmv.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Yutsano:
As it is, you’re lucky enough to live in what the fortune cookies refer to as “interesting times”.
You’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do you, Yutsano?
[edited for utterly pedantic reasons]
NR
@piratedan: This argument makes no sense. If the Dems had time to pass the corporatist boondoggle that is the ACA, they also had time to pass Medicare for all. Time wasn’t the issue, what the Democrats wanted was.
NR
@Yutsano: That’s usually what happens in a democracy.
Yutsano
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Only because I’ve seen the future in a bunch of cheese farmers and maple tappers. The endgame has already started. We’re just paying attention to the sidereal noise.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@NR:
Tell it to Socrates, bub.
piratedan
@NR: did you actually LIVE through those years or did you spontaneously evolve in 2010 so you could engage in this bit of revisionist history?
Did you not witness the hard slog that Pelosi had to endure to get bills passed to watch the egregious amount of obstructionism that took place on the Senate floor thereafter?
What part of “the votes weren’t there” do you not comprehend?
Yes, this package was right out of 1990 Republican Dogma in response to Clinton’s Single Payer Plan. Yes, it is less than an optimal piece of legislation, yet despite its flaws, it brings more people out of the cold and prevents some of the most heinous of practices that were going on in the healthcare industry. Despite all of the evidence that it’s still a corpratist boondoggle, it will still lower rates, it will rein in escalating costs, it will cover more people than had previously been able to find coverage.
I understand that unicorns and leprechauns must roam freely where you live but what part of “There was jack shit to prevent insurance companies from raising their rates on a whim and denying people coverage just because they are sick” 2008 do you not fucking remember?
NR, do us all a favor… run for public office and be an inspiration to us all.
toschek
The freedom to shout NIGGER in a crowded theater is one of our most cherished rights after all, god bless the USA.
Oh, and /bitter if no one picks up on that.
Karl
I agree with all but one piece of this- Bush vs. Gore completed the transition
mai naem
@NR: Oh,STFU. You could not have been following the debate that well if that’s what you are coming up with. You can say that the Dems played poor strategy but nobody could have predicted how totally assholish the Repubs were going to be. All thats great when you are playing Monday Morning Quarterback but you forget how much time was wasted in the various committees with the various Repubs promising this and promising that. And it doesn’t help when you have stupid Americans who have never traveled outside their stupid little flyover states yelling about soshuhllliiizmm and don’t take away my Medicare!!! Intrades got the mandate going down but they don’t have any specific bets going on about the whole law, just the mandate. I have no idea whats going to happen but I think they’re going to strike part of it down.
Raven
@mai naem: nah, 6-3 uphold
TenguPhule
Where is the metal noose around the statue’s neck?
Where is the graffetti that demands to be put on that sneering face?
Valdivia
half believing the 6-3 half thinking it all goes down including the medicaid part which will mean all the new deal programs will be up for challenge right away.
hoodie
If the Arizona case is any indication, 6-3 uphold. Neither Roberts nor Kennedy is a big states’ rights guy, and they will cast the mandate as merely a tax and/or necessary for the overall regulatory scheme. Doesn’t hurt that it helps insurance companies. The devil in the details with ACA is whether the MLR regulatory scheme holds up or it gets turned into a money funnel for the private sector.
geg6
@Valdivia:
I hope I’m wrong, but I think it all goes down. And for the very reason you mention: to kill the legacy of FDR and its expansions. Wave bye-bye to Social Security, Medicare, and get ready for the end of the minimum wage, the reinstatement of child labor, no more collective bargaining. Hell, I’ll be surprised if they don’t go for ending women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts.
Valdivia
@geg6:
I am hoping not! That would be taking the wrecking ball to this country in a radical way. Sigh.
John S.
@NR:
You are hacktacular.
People opposing the mandate =/= They think it’s unconstitutional.
Omnes Omnibus
@John S.: People do this all the time. NR is hacktacular and a one-note troll, but s/he is not alone in this particular error.
I am still holding out hope that the Court will do its job; “But we are not asked in this case to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine. We are asked to hold that it violates the United States Constitution. And that I cannot do.” (Yes, I recognize the irony of quoting Stewart’s dissent in Griswold in this context.) Even though Stewart and Black got the result wrong, IMO, they were trying to apply the correct standard.
smedley
If Roberts was concerned about his legacy, he had a perfect opportunity to show it when the Montana AG, et al, presented the case that corporate money can and has influenced legislation. Instead, the Court opted not to hear that evidence. The Citizens United case will, indeed, be remembered much like the Dred Scott case. But it will be several generations from now. Things will have to get much worse before they start to get better.
John S.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Unfortunately, the country has pivoted from governing based on rule of law to governing based on rule of emotion.
How do people FEEL about the mandate? I don’t give a flying fuck, and neither should the SCOTUS. What do people THINK about the mandate? They don’t, and that’s the problem. But the media and politicians are fixated on feelings, nothing more than feelings…
I don’t care if politicians feel my fucking pain; I want them to think of a way to make the pain stop. They seem to be incapable.
Dennis G.
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Exactly
Rommie
@Valdivia: That’s why DennisG is making the suggestion that Things Won’t Go Well if that happens. Which is why, as a proud Billy Yank, I sincerely hope the modern-day versions of Sherman and Grant are put in charge at the start this time, not the end.
But I also have no curiosity to find out how far is too far, no thank you.
C Taney
I’m related to Roger B. Taney, and there are two facts you should know about the man. First, he manumitted his slaves, which is to say he freed them upon his death. He also died alone and penniless, so for everyone wishing him ill, don’t worry – he paid for his sins. I am not defending what he did, but for those who wish to tear down his statue, you might as well go ahead and tear down all the monuments to the founding fathers, the vast majority of whom owned slaves, and were not friends to liberalism.
Anyhow, 5 generations later, I come from a family who now volunteers for Obama, and champions gay marriage.
You can all feel free to criticize, ridicule, and hate, but we cannot choose our ancestors – all we can do is evolve beyond their sins, and try to make the world a better place than they left it.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
shortstop
Were the Taneys a prominent family? The Taneytown road that runs through the Gettysburg battlefield (and the town to which it refers) is named for them, I’m guessing.
C Taney
@shortstop: Roger B. Taney has counties and towns named for him throughout the south, specifically in Maryland and Mississippi. There’s also a US Coast Gaurd Cutter named the Roger B. Taney – it’s drydocked in Baltimore, serving as a museum. It’s the last ship to survive Pearl Harbor.
Also, please know that it’s pronounced “TAW-NEY”. Chris Matthews didn’t care to know that much.
Ruckus
@piratedan:
you are fucking delusional. Period.
This is all you need to know, understand and reply to NR.