The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold President Obama’s Health Care law has sparked a full-fledged freakout in the Republican party, as right wingers struggle to come to terms with Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision to side with the Court’s liberal wing.
Although the reactions vary widely — ranging from disappointment, to anger, to outright lunacy — most of them fit into one of these four categories:
1) Sad Tweets
Immediately after the ruling, many distraught right wingers took to Twitter to vent their anger. Here are some of the most entertaining tweets:
Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn’t a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies.
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) June 28, 2012
I miss Justice Harriet Miers. — Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) June 28, 2012
SC declares that Congress and the Prez can force upon the American people anything they want and call it a tax buff.ly/QrZ29W — Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) June 28, 2012
This is the greatest destruction of individual liberty since Dred Scott. This is the end of America as we know it. No exaggeration. — benshapiro (@benshapiro) June 28, 2012
John Roberts, Chickensh*t. Did Obama’s Court bashing flip Roberts? Evidence suggests a late Roberts switch. – bit.ly/LRyD1W — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) June 28, 2012
For more, check out Media Matters’ gallery.
2) Attacking The Court
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, a birther who is best known for warning Americans about the rising threat of “terror babies,” ranted to Think Progress about how “it’s important to look at Justice Kagan for potential impeachment” as a result of her vote to uphold the law.
Not to be outdone, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul openly questioned whether the Supreme Court has the authority to decide whether something is constitutional. Seriously.
“Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so,” he said in a statement. “The whole thing remains unconstitutional.”
Conservatives reserved special scorn for John Roberts, who Rush Limbaugh decried as an “activist judge,” and his brother David slammed as a “Manchurian candidate.”
3) Religious Right Division
The religious right is up in arms over the Supreme Court’s decision. Lila Rose of Live Action wrote that
Today, the Supreme Court has upheld nothing more than a Ponzi scheme to expand the abortion business. If this legislation is not overturned by the next administration, Obamacare’s socialist-style diktats will be used, not to provide better or more affordable health care, but to expand Planned Parenthood’s abortion empire across the backs of American taxpayers and people of conscience – and at the expense of our religious freedoms.
While Dr. David Stevens of the Christian Medical Associated warned
“Who will stop U.S. Health and Human Services political appointees from forcing employers and individuals with faith-based convictions to subsidize abortion or life-ending contraceptives and imposing huge ‘faith fines’ on those of us who resist? What will stop this administration, with its radical pro-abortion agenda, from further undermining conscience rights and pursuing policies that effectively force out of medicine physicians with life-honoring convictions? Who will keep government panels from effectively denying physicians and patients choice about what are the most effective and appropriate medicines, surgeries and treatments?
For more reactions from the religious right, go to Right Wing Watch.
4) Call For Repeal And Replace
Generally the most measured type of response, many Republicans have called on Congress to do what the Supreme Court wouldn’t and kill the law. Mitt Romney, who promised to act to repeal Obamacare on the first day of his presidency, falls into this camp.
For their part, Congressional Republicans have promised to vote on a repeal on July 11th.
According to the aforementioned Rush Limbaugh, however, there is no plan to replace the law after repeal. Limbaugh said on raido show on Wednesday that he had received a call from John Boehner, in which the Speaker of the House “made it clear that repeal — and not repeal and replace, but repeal — was going to be the focal point for the House Republicans.”
It’s just as well; as The New Yorker’sRyan Lizza and The Daily Beast’sDavid Frum point out, repealing Obamacare would be nearly impossible.
For more ridiculous Tweets, check out @LOLGOP’s collection of the best from last week!
