I've noted a couple of times that Supreme Court Rule 44 allows the filing of a petition for rehearing by the losing party in any case decided by the Supreme Court. I've highlighted a number of statements by Obama Administration officials an Obama campaign surrogates that called into question the sincerity of the argument made by Obama's Solicitor General that ObamaCare's penalty is really a tax -- the basis used by the Supreme Court to uphold ObamaCare.

What we have lacked, however, is any statement by President Obama himself affirming that the penalty is not a tax.

Until today.

President Obama, confronted with the issue of the Supreme Court upholding his health care law by declaring the individual mandate a tax, contradicted the court by saying that the individual mandate “penalize[s]” Americans rather than taxes them.

“You have to take responsibility, and if you don’t, you’re going to be penalized for it, and that’s the right thing to do,” Obama told WDTN-NBC while defending the individual mandate. He also denied that the court’s ruling means that he has raised taxes through Obamacare. “I have consistently kept my promise not to raise taxes on people [making] under $250,000 a year.”

In other words, the President himself has now declared that the law contains no tax (which would be constitutional under the ObamaCare decision), only a penalty (which the decision states is not constitutional).

Obama's comments are indicative that he and his legal team perpetrated a fraud upon the court. That is grounds for rehearing -- provided one of the justices who voted to uphold the law is willing to vote for it. Will Chief Justice Robers, the architect of the Taxation Clause decision, have the integrity to grant a rehearing if a petition is filed? And will those who challenged ObamaCare in the first place step up to plate and file the requisite paperwork -- and pay the princely sum of $300 -- within the next 17 days in order to get the ball rolling on the process of getting this constitutional travesty overturned?