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I'm not sure what "liberals" Washington Post columnist Charles Lane was talking about on this week's Fox News Sunday when he said this, but I've got a few words for his assumptions about how "liberals" are going to have to act if Supreme Court Justice John Roberts overturns part of the Voting Rights Act or affirmative action and that's "I don't think so pal."

LANE: What he has done in his brilliant opinion is to sacrifice a pawn, called the individual mandate and put the entire Great Society in check. And he has done that by getting two liberal justices to agree with him in a seven to two ruling that there are serious limitations on the federal government's ability to use its spending power to get the states to cooperate in welfare and education programs, which is really how everything works, or a lot of things work including education, Medicaid, etc.

And he has done that and gotten liberals to applaud him for it, so that now, next term when Voting Rights Act Section 5 and affirmative action in colleges come up before the court as they're going to and he votes with the other four conservatives to strike them down, all those liberals who might otherwise complain will now have to acknowledge that this fair-minded statesman, John Roberts, was involved in that decision.

This is a man of great brilliance and all those conservatives who are griping about this ruling need to give it a second thought.

Here's what most liberals still think of John Roberts, no matter how he ruled on this insurance friendly, Republican health care law he just upheld: 10 Ways John Roberts Is Still A Conservative’s Best Friend.

And calling someone ruling to keep "the Great Society in check" "brilliant" has to be one of the most crass things I've heard come out of anyone's mouth in a while now.

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During her recent interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board, Michele Bachmann's statements about torture and waterboarding were not the only outrageous statements the GOP presidential candidate made. She also decided to double down on her recent debate performance, where she said we should "Be more like China, and end "Great Society" programs. During this interview, Bachmann came straight out and advocated eliminating the earned income tax credit, food stamps and public housing.

Naturally during this same interview she was advocating lowering the corporate tax rates and for an extremely unfair and regressive flat tax, because heaven forbid we can't have those lazy poor people out there not paying their fair share in taxes.

From The Des Moines Register article:

In the wide-ranging, hourlong discussion with the Register, Bachmann also touched on numerous policies she would pursue as president, including a review of defense spending, an expansion of domestic energy production, federal regulatory reform and an overhaul of the tax code.

Many of her priorities focus on cuts and reductions to social programs benefiting the poor.

Her tax reform plan, for example, calls for an end to the earned-income tax credit, the tax relief program created in 1975 that can completely offset federal income taxes for the working poor and under certain circumstances could result in a cash payment to recipients.

Such a benefit gives one group of Americans a free ride while burdening another, she said, suggesting it also leads to unsustainable expectations for government benefits and services.

“We’re deluding ourselves if we’re embracing a dependency culture that looks like Greece,” she said.

She also called for a review of the “Great Society” — the raft of federal social services enacted in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson. Programs like food stamps and public housing that represent the “modern welfare state” are too expensive and need to be dismantled, she said.

“What I want to do is go through the Great Society programs, and I think a lot of them need to be ended,” she said.

Individual states, she said, could choose whether to provide those services in lieu of the federal government.

Among the federal programs enacted under the banner of the Great Society were the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs, food stamps, Head Start preschool and federal student loans.

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Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann says that the U.S. should be more like China and do away with Great Society programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

At a debate with seven other Republican candidates in South Carolina Saturday night, National Journal's Major Garrett asked Bachmann what programs she would eliminate as president.

"The 'Great Society' has not worked and it's put us into the modern welfare state," she explained, referring to a set of domestic programs put in place by President Lyndon B. Johnson. They included the Civil Rights Act, the War on Poverty, federal aid to public education, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Endowment for the Arts, public broadcasting, the Department of Transportation, various consumer protection agencies and environmental protections.

Bachmann added: "If you look at China, they don't have food stamps. If you look at China, they're in a very different situation. They save for their own retirement security... They don't have the modern welfare state and China's growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with the Great Society and they'd be gone."

With this statement, the candidate seemed to contradict her own website.

"As President, she will ensure that any reform to Social Security or Medicare will only affect those 55 and younger, and she will work to find a way to ease the next generation into a program that is solvent, fiscally responsible, and empowering to the individual," the website says. "Michele has also pledged to protect Medicare by repealing Obamacare."