Chief Justice John Roberts Sides With Dems On Pennsylvania Mail In Extension

From CNN:

(CNN)As another high-stakes confrontation between Democrats and Republicans went down to the wire, Chief Justice John Roberts again crept left and sided with the liberals.

Roberts' vote on Monday night, in a ballot dispute in the battleground state of Pennsylvania critical to President Donald Trump's reelection bid, led to a 4-4 Supreme Court deadlock. That left in place a Pennsylvania court decision allowing mailed ballots to be counted up to three days after Election Day, despite familiar yet unfounded claims from Republicans regarding "the taint of" illegal ballots.
                                                                                                                              It was not the first time Roberts, a 2005 appointee of Republican George W. Bush, has moved left in a highly charged partisan case to cinch the outcome, but it may be one of the last.
                                                                                                                          The Supreme Court is on the cusp of a transformation, less one week before it likely sees the addition of a conservative jurist, Amy Coney Barrett, and two weeks before a presidential election. Barrett, 48, has a record and approach to the law that puts her to the far right of the 65-year-old Roberts.

Trump, whose reelection fate may hinge on legal rulings, called the court's action on Pennsylvania "ridiculous" and "very strange" in an interview on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday morning.
                                                                                                                          The President has said he wants Barrett on the court in time to resolve any major election case. "I think this will end up at the Supreme Court," he said last month of the presidential contest. "And I think it's very important that we have nine justices."

CNN is certainly relishing in the opportunity to portray Roberts as country before party, in stark contrast to the media portrayals of nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

The reality is that Trump and Roberts have seemingly been at odds, leaving many to wonder if his string of rulings against the Administration is part of a larger vendetta. 

The public fued may have its origins at the beginning of the Trump Presidency when the two go into a public spat about the supposed impartiality of Federal judges. 

From AP:

Before now, it has been highly unusual for a president to single out judges for personal criticism. And a chief justice’s challenge to a president’s comments is downright unprecedented in modern times.

It seemed a fight that Trump would relish but one that Roberts has taken pains to avoid. But with Roberts’ court feeling the heat over the president’s appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Roberts and several of his colleagues have gone out of their way to rebut perceptions of the court as a political institution divided between five conservative Republicans and four liberal Democrats.

Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have themselves spurred charges that the courts are becoming more politicized. As the justice widely seen as closest to the court’s middle, Roberts could determine the outcome of high-profile cases that split the court.

The new drama began with remarks Trump made Tuesday in which went after a judge who ruled against his migrant asylum order. The president claimed, not for the first time, that the federal appeals court based in San Francisco was biased against him.

Roberts had refused to comment on Trump’s earlier attacks on judges, including the chief justice himself. But on Wednesday, after a query by The Associated Press, he spoke up for the independence of the federal judiciary and rejected the notion that judges are loyal to the presidents who appoint them.

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them,” Roberts said.

On the day before Thanksgiving, he concluded, “The independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Trump hit back from his resort home in Florida, questioning the independence of federal judges appointed by his predecessor and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He especially criticized judges on California’s 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,” the president tweeted.

If the 9th Circuit judges are independent, he said, “why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. ... these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!”

Trump has never been reticent about criticizing the judiciary. Last year, the president scorned the “so-called judge” who made the first federal ruling against his travel ban. During the presidential campaign, he criticized Roberts himself for the chief justice’s decisive vote in 2012 to preserve President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul."

Election integrity is by far the single greatest issue at hand with the Election just weeks away. 

Providing a swing state with the ability to count ballots for days after the election will only muddy the waters, especially with the avalanche of mail in ballots the Dems have foisted upon the country with no other reason than to undermine Trump & the results.