Chief Justice Roberts voted with the liberals to uphold the bill.

The Supreme Court astonished many Americans including this blogger by upholding Obamacare essentially in its entirety by ruling that the individual mandate is a tax.

Barack Obama can be seen in this video arguing that the individual mandate is not a tax (increase). (H/T Patterico)

What does all this mean?

Well, I guess our liberal friends are going to change their minds about the illegitimacy of the Supreme Court, and Chief Justice Roberts is going to receive massive quantities of strange, new respect.

If the Court is willing to read the taxing power so sweepingly, in future Congress won’t need to go looking to the Commerce Clause. In essence, the Roberts Court has decided to dramatically expand Congressional power far more than it would have done if it had followed Wickard and upheld the law under the Commerce Clause.

We are left wondering, if the Obamacare individual mandate is a legitimate exercise of an enumerated Congressional power, what could Congress try to compel individual Americans to buy or do that would be beyond its legitimate authority?

———————

Over on Twitter,

Drew M observes: Just a reminder: Democrats NEVER get screwed by their Court nominees. ‪

“At first people thought he had just fallen over from leaning too far to the right.”

–Jay Leno on Chief Justice John Roberts’ seizure.

Nice compliment.

via Anne Schoeder.