O, What a Tangled Web....

In the case of Roberts, it appears to have been self-deception (writ very large, indeed.)

...John Roberts has ruled that the penalty is not a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act, but IS a tax for constitutional purposes. (As a side note, even the lower courts or judges that semi-accepted the "tax" argument had it exactly the opposite: that it was a tax for AIA purposes but NOT for constitutional purposes....)

...Here, Congress is taxing the inactivity itself. This is unprecedented, and illogical. It means that any time Congress wants to force you to, yes, buy broccoli, it can impose a tax on your refusal to do so, and thus escape the limits on Commerce-Clause powers.

....and "conservatives" such as Krauthammer and Erickson give Roberts a BJ because he didn't buy the "commerce clause" bunkum spewed by the Administration.

Did we ever mention the Ruling Class?