Affordable Care Act Ruling by SCOTUS

So, the court ruled that the "individual mandate" is actually a tax and therefore it stands. From what I have been able to determine, this is at best a double edged sword for the Dems. The court didn't really uphold the individual mandate, they upheld the right of the congressional powers of taxation. Remember that Obama declared vehemently on numerous occasions that the individual mandate was not a tax. It was one of the deciding factors in the passing of the Act. Now that the bill has passed and the covers have been pulled back, we can see that Obama did nothing more than deceive the American people to achieve his aims. He has shown his true colors as nothing more than an everyday "TAX and SPEND" democrat who believes he knows better what is good for US citizens than they themselves know.

Time will tell what the final outcome will be, but I believe there is more to the decision than the initial news headlines. To borrow from Madam Pelosi, we will have to read it to see what is actually in it. I predict the democrats have just lost most of the independent and youth vote.

This directly from the mouth of the President on September 20, 2009:

OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but…
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?
OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.

Rejected that is, until the bill was challenged. Guess his "critics" were right all along.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/09/obama-mandate-is-not-a-tax/

This a quote from the majority opinion of the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court who has just called you out. Basically he said, get up, get off your ass, get involved, if you don't like the decision, YOU have the power to change it...YOU:

“It Is Not Our Job to Protect the People From the Consequences of Their Political Choices”

Below are two quotes from Chief Justice Roberts on the Supreme Court’s responsibility in handling the health care law.

“We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders.”

“Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

Keep this in mind. The court, acting on a very narrow argument, rendered a decision based on the law, just as they did in the Citizens United case and the Arizona Immigration case. Very narrowly defined arguments, not broad brush policy decisions, but very narrow constitutional interpretations based upon the arguments presented. They made the right choice, taxes are constitutional, the mandate is another issue as is the Act itself.


Remember in November, what the TEA Party stands for -- TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY.

Recently I was engaged in a discussion on "the most embarrassing moment of your life".  I can honestly say that I have over the course of my many years I've had many embarrassing moments, but one that sticks out in my mind as perhaps my most embarrassing moment came at the age of 12. 

At that time, our military family was stationed at Camp Zama, in the Sagamihara Prefecture, Japan. My brother (10) and I regularly took our allowance, caught a train outside our base and rode for 40 minutes to the regional shopping district for a day of fun and pachingco playing. One day, we arrived at the station to find a beautiful silver and blue train at the station. Not knowing any better and not being able to read or speak Japanese, we didn't realize that this was the wrong train.  Deciding that it was much more attractive than the regular brown rickety trains we were used to, we hopped on to ride this pretty train. Turned out that this was the fabled 120 MPH bullet train and in the normal 40 minutes, we were deposited in the main train terminal in downtown Tokyo. Suffice to say, this was a rather other worldly experience kind of akin to Dorothy landing in Oz. We found ourselves ambling about Tokyo in fear, awe and wonder about our predicament. We couldn't get help from the Japanese because Japanese of 1966 did not speak English and we didn't speak Japanese.  As we wondered about trying to decide what to to, we came across a beautifully manicured park and wandered up to a small river to sit and discuss our predicament. No sooner had we sat down than a flock of black swans came swimming down the river, raced out of the water and attacked us. As one started grabbing at my brothers red sweater, I picked up a large (for me) stick and started to beat the swans. 

The commotion caused an uproar and we were soon surrounded by a bunch of Japanese officials screaming at us in a language we could not understand. We were taken to a police station, the US embassy was called and an interpreter arrived to determine how two young American kids could be wandering around downtown Tokyo causing such a commotion. 

Turns out that we had wandered onto the grounds of the Imperial Palace, the "river" was the surrounding moat and the swans were the protectors of the moat and were sacred. We caused an international incident and endless embarrassment to my father who had to drive more than 50 miles to come recover us from the clutches of the angry Japanese. I don't think either of us were able to sit for a week and we were never again allowed to ride the train.