Justice Roberts Pleads: 'Lie to Me'

"Under [my] theory, the mandate is not a legal command to buy insurance," Roberts wrote. "Rather, it makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income."

Huh?

Yes, Roberts actually wrote those words in what will certainly go down as his most famous and studied work ever. Our Ivy League-credentialed chief justice just wrote that going without insurance can be taxed just like income and buying gas, without realizing that many people do not make income or buy gas.

It must have escaped Roberts that you can avoid making income -- which is ironic, since many of the folks celebrating his ruling avoid just that. And he missed that you can also avoid buying gas. Heck, Obama's energy secretary avoids that. But now, under Roberts's own theory and using Roberts's own words, you and I cannot avoid buying insurance without being taxed as a result. And as we mentioned, our Treasury secretary -- not to mention the former Ways and Means Committee chair -- manages to avoid being taxed.