And Trump said his sister would be a "phenomenal" Supreme Court Justice.
As for Roberts, I don't see a case where Roberts compromised himself. Care to enlighten us? Even with the Obamacare decision, he based it upon longstanding legal precedence, saying that plaintiff had no standing until after a tax went into effect. I strongly suspect that if the tax case returned to the Supreme Court, he would declare it unconstitutional. But then that is an entirely different matter.
Anyway, I will take Roberts any day of the week and twice on Sundays over Maryanne Barry. I will never have to worry about Roberts declaring partial birth abortion a Constitutional right.
The first break from precedent was in declaring a
penalty which had been repeatedly described as and called a
penalty by its authors in the Senate is suddenly a
'tax', the very thing we had been repeatedly told by the authors of that part of the legislation and its proponents it most assuredly was NOT.
In doing so, Roberts effectively rewrote the law. That is not the job of the SCOTUS: it may rule on the Constitutionality of the law, but writing it is the domain of the Congress. A penalty for violating a law is one thing, a tax upon those who are in noncompliance is another. It is a fine difference when the law covers all citizens, but a difference, nonetheless.
In addition, since the now
Justice-deemed Revenue measure ("TAX") originated in the Senate, that, too is in violation of the Constitution, which specifies taxes and other revenue measures must originate in the House of Representatives. The Senate is free, of course to impose a penalty for the violation of a law, but not to impose taxes. That is the purview of the House of Representatives.
In addition, whether or not I have insurance is something I should not be forced to surrender for the purpose of being penalized (5th Amendment), and possibly a HIPAA violation as well. This angle was not pursued, because, after all, who would rule it was constitutional to be penalized for NOT buying something just because you were breathing and not engaging in any special activity which might require some mitigation of risk, and who would think the Supreme COurt of the United States of America (
Land of the free/Home of the Brave) would ever rule in favor of a tax for just being alive?--especially when we had been told for months the damned thing was a "PENALTY".
Roberts should have been kicked off the bench over that ruling, and still should be, IMHO.