Mark Levin Slams George Will for Being 'Absurd'

June 28th, 2012 8:32 PM

Mark Levin came out on his radio show with rhetorical guns blazing against the John Roberts decision upholding ObamaCare. He called it "profoundly stupid" and said if he was Justice Roberts, he would be embarrassed to sign his name to it.

Levin also took to his Facebook page to slam George Will for "one of his most absurd columns ever" trying to find positive spin in the ruling:

There were four votes to strike down Obamacare, rejecting the Democrats' attempt to expand the commerce clause to include inactivity. If Roberts had joined the other four, the entire law would have fallen, including the preposterous attempt to expand the commerce clause. Roberts saved Obamacare on concocted CONSTITUTIONAL GROUNDS by making a truly incoherent argument that the penalty provision being a tax, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Moreover, it is not a tax under the Constitution -- not a direct tax, not an excise tax, not an income tax. That's why Roberts was unable to apply any of those taxes to the penalty in any rational way. Thus, regulating inactivity is out (for now, as the four liberal justices were prepared to expand the commerce clause), but taxing inactivity is in, even where Congress insists it is not taxing but penalizing, and even where the tax/penalty does not meet any of the definitions of permissible taxation under the Constitution. The civics lesson, Mr. Will, is that Roberts's arguments are specious and an example of absurd judicial activism. (I note you defended judicial activism the other day, but you confused judicial review with judicial activism, a matter I can take up another day, assuming I care to.)

Roberts and the other justices had a duty to strike this law because it is not supported by our history, the Constitution, or reason. Roberts had to rewrite the statute, alter the penalty provision, and make a mess of the federal government's taxing powers to get where he wanted to go.